Lately I’ve become less engaged with the world. How do I find something to be interested in? | Leading questions

I used to be really interested in the world. I’d read lots of news, books from authors around the world and had opinions about world events. I work for a charity that works globally too. But lately I’ve become less engaged. I don’t know if it’s due to having children, fatigue or the harshness of the world, but I feel unplugged from it all and not interested. Equally I’m not interested in anything else as an alternative. I feel my world becoming smaller. I spend hours scrolling Instagram too. How can I find “something” to be interested in again?

Eleanor says: When I was in my early teens my dad was trying to explain depression to me because a dear friend had it and I thought she was making a mistake. I interrupted him to pause and savour a bite of sourdough toast with cream cheese. He pointed to that exact moment – there – that’s what your friend can’t feel right now.

Many times since then my own interest in the world has come and gone, but I think, when it’s around, it lives in things like sourdough toast. Love for the world is love for the way the milk makes a thundercloud in the tea, or for an interesting bubble of dish detergent, as much as for making a difference or having views on the state of things. If your ability to feel pleasure is totally diminished, you may benefit from seeking psychological help.

If your sense of disconnection feels more spiritual than psychological, then “the world” is a big thing to try to get interested in. What answers to that task? Big stuff, stuff we feel we should be interested in: “Go to a museum”, “Read an enriching book”, “See the sunrise.” When we’re in an anhedonic slump – whether depressed or just unplugged – these grand sources of human value don’t always wake up the senses, and that just amplifies the problem. Really, I don’t feel interested even by this?

So what if you just poke around doing little stuff and let the feelings lead? That is, don’t do stuff with the mission to feel interested again. Do it fully prepared to be bored, just to see how you feel. In time, the goal is that this reintroduces trying things and making judgments about what you like.

Why is this a corrective? Because feeling disengaged isn’t about disliking everything. It’s about not liking anything, as you know. It’s the kind of blah in which a screen feels like the only live option. “What do you do for fun?” “I look at phone.” Very few of us would answer, “What do you value?” with “Screen.” I think its allure when we’re depleted is instead that it’s a kind of absence, a cessation. It’s just not: a blessed, private, effort-free period of not.

Everybody needs to “not” now and then, but too much and we lose track of the fact we’re individuals with preferences and values, and crucially, choices.

Doing little things to notice how you feel can bring those choices back. You remind yourself that you’re in there; that you have standards by which you measure things, even if the way you feel for the first six or 10 or 12 times is “bored” or “anxious” or “didn’t like it”. Feeling like you’re reacting to stuff as an individual, instead of just passively taking it in, is the beginning of interest; noticing how we react to things might help restore that.

An important note: the times when simply “not” seems most appealing are often the times we most need real rest. You’re parenting, working, fatigued. You might just literally not have the energy or for the sustained attention of valuing things. If that’s right, the fix might be to start with genuinely restful things – not Instagram, not nothing, actual rest. The cliches work here: a slow project, a walk, a meditation, deep sleep.

As you come back to yourself it might help to start small. There will be world events and great art when you are recharged and ready. In the meantime there is toast.

*This question has been edited for length