I've been out and about thinking a lot about the "Why" and the "How" of the "Where" part of the equation. It occurs to me that many of the times people always ask me why I am doing what I am doing, usually when I am caught in the exploration of the "going" part of my spirit.
It seems as though I've been residing in a culture of the "why" to get some place. It is probably my naivety, but I think people need more of a lack of why. It seems we are always quick to get as quick as we can for a meeting, to move on with our lives after checking off task #1 on our list, with task #2 quickly in tow.
What about children? What about jobs? What about making money, shopping, keeping up agreements and being punctual?
I seem to have blown a couple minds recently. I was talking with some folks about a new program, and if/how we could go about it. It involved using Design Thinking, and participating in a bunch of these seemingly unrelated modules to come out with an executable plan for new things. I think it's awesome.
Through talking about design, we wound up getting to the heart of the issue, which is that there is an underlying paradigm about systems in place, and that I believed this new program could help shift this paradigm, and help more people because of its shift.
There was a pause in the conversation, and both of the people I was talking with looked at me with a stunned silence. It's like their eyes were opened onto a taller level of thinking. They had not only seen the next story the escalator led to, but they rode it up there.
So what about a new paradigm shift towards slowing down and wandering? What if we came up with this idea that we create this mindset that allows our cultures to not have such a well defined, tight, and strict rule of the "why" and "how" of the "where" equation.
Let's build systems to take care of those we love, or hell, bring them with us when we wander!
Let's respect and allow the time to meander a bit, and give ourselves moments to relax.
The system we have now is focused like a belt around an already wound telescope. Society is getting to a point where we are simply crushing the tool we are using to examine things up close. The mind is stressed enough as it is. It needs time to flourish.
I hate to carpool with people to events. There is a focus on getting there, getting back, and not appreciating the scenery or what is to be discovered in between along the way. There is always talk of the goings on at work, the blatant disregard for where you are. The "where" is simply a place to do the thing, and move on.
There doesn't have to be stopping and learning everything. There should just be an acknowledgement of the land around you, it's shapes, forms, and story. This is really seen in the disregard of middle America as having nothing, being boring, and a "drive-through" type of place. Yeah, I've done that drive too, but just think of all the stories, people, times, towns, life, that lay in those plains.
The best part of carpooling or not driving is being able to simply observe, and take it all in. Eventually it all fills so much you drift off to sleep, much like has happened with me on road trips where I'm not driving. And if I am driving? I have to stay awake, and it makes me write things like this.
Today I decided to go somewhere I haven't been before. I took the long way home from Hood River. I didn't need to work in the existing paradigm of punctuality or efficiency, so I took the rest of the day for a drive for simply no other reason to see what I could see.
I was literally driving in a painting above the ground, and it was phenomenal.
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