But what about doing nothing…

What about just laying on the ground and looking up. What about not even looking up, but closing your eyes and listening. What about breathing in the smells, feeling the earth…what about those things?

Where it started

In a staff meeting, I brought up how successful my semester with the Grade Nine English Literature class was because students had to put their phones on a table near the door. You can read about it here if you’d like. I wish all my colleagues were on the same page, yet they may very well be fighting the same battle — trying to keep their devices at arm’s length themselves. It feels like part of the human condition right now to make sure we own our things and our things don’t own us.

After I mentioned the success of a no-phone semester, a younger teacher — one who truly cares — came to me with a lot of questions.

“Can they be rewarded with their phone if they finish their work?” Her eyes were wide with curiosity.

“No. The phone is not a reward. It’s actually a punishment. Nobody knows that yet.” I smiled because I believe it.

She cocked her head. “Should I give them work if they finish early — worksheets or something?”

I shrugged. “If you want.”

She smiled and said she’d try.

A few days later she came back and told me they weren’t doing the worksheets, or even the fun things she had planned to engage them — games, books, etc.

“They just sit there.”

I laughed.

“Let them.”

“Let them?”

“Just sit there?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Because eventually they will talk to someone, or decide to do something, or nap if they’re tired. They might listen to their peers having a conversation, overhear how to answer a question, or even hear about the challenges and hardships in someone’s life. Their brain will wander the hallways of their thoughts. That’s where creativity lives — in those empty moments when we aren’t actively doing something. You know when you’re folding laundry or doing something mindless and you start daydreaming? That. That’s what you want. I don’t think they should be distracted by the phone.”

This sweet teacher gave me a solid “huh” and said she’d give it a go.

I don’t know how it all turned out for her, but I said what I said — and I believe it.

The void

The void is not scary. I think the void is where ideas and random thoughts swirl together — the place where you don’t think you’re thinking. It’s where seeds are planted and slowly begin to grow. We don’t notice until one day an idea just pops up. It feels miraculous, but what’s truly miraculous is allowing our brains to move in the direction of silence and emptiness.

I don’t know the science behind it, but I feel like nature likes filling voids. So if we leave our brains alone long enough, eventually the silence — the emptiness — will be filled.

I hope we find time to do nothing. I hope we always look up and see the tops of the trees, the shapes in the clouds. Sit in quiet and listen to ambient noise. Notice sunlight moving across walls through the trees. I hope we love our brains enough to let them be tickled by the ordinary.

I hope.

As always, thank you for reading, Lovelies.