LITTLE LANTERNS
"Everything's awesome and wonderful."
This week, I’ve spent of lot of time around kids. Not in a creepy way! Not in a creepy way. But yes, I’ve spent time in kindergarten, surrounded by toddlers. I’ve spent time there, and I’ve seen things.
Never in my adult life had I spent so much time with so many kids. And really, unless you’ve made eight of them yourself, or work in childcare, today’s world gives you no reason to. Adults and children tend to live very separate lives. We want to have coffee and long conversations; they want to put their fingers in sockets and eat stones.
I always thought of myself as relatively baby-savvy. Not massively interested, but not clueless either. But really, I had long left the realm of children. I had not really looked at kids, or looked at the world the way kids do.
“We don't really take in the world anymore as adults,” said Michael Pollan in Trevor Noah’s podcast recently.
“We have stopped having what's sometimes called ‘lantern consciousness’ of children, where they take in information from everywhere and everything's awesome and wonderful. We have what's called ‘spotlight consciousness’ which is very useful for getting stuff done, but it gives you a focus and it's based on the world being as the world usually is. So very little new information comes in.”
This week, I’ve tried to look at the world a bit more like the toddlers I’ve met. I’ve gone to the playground and, instead of dragging my feet, asked myself – what is so great about this swing? I‘ve played their favourite song and asked myself – what is so pleasant about this melody? I’ve tried to look at others with the same innocence. Tried to experience food, and movement, and all the elements of our daily lives, the way they do. It won’t always work, but it’s been a nice change, to “cast a diffuse radiance” on everything I saw.
Love lanterns! Thanks for the inspiration. Happy week!