Recently, Arthus treated us to the importance of nothing. He wrote:
My favorite thing of all is to do nothing at all. I do nothing all the time: I walk nowhere, I think about nothing, I work on nothing.
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Doing nothing is the same as doing anything that strikes your fancy, or not. Doing nothing is getting a crazy idea, then forgetting it.
I compare Arthus’s “doing nothing” with the time that I spend thinking and tinkering. Such time is of critical importance to any creative individual; it is when we find new directions for our ideas and explore the breadth of the intellectual realm. The world would be a very boring place if we never allowed ourselves to wander in new directions.
However, one must wander somewhere. I believe that our lives are nothing more than the sum of the actions that we take. If we only wander through the intellectual void that is doing nothing, nothing is all we will be. Life isn’t about meandering through our thoughts, it is about grabbing a thought by the horns and running with it.
I believe that a fully lived life is without boredom. You should always be doing something: pursuing some new idea, trying or learning something new, working towards some end, building something, never losing momentum.
Every experience we have provides us with new information that we use to make sense of the world around us, expanding our schemata. This understanding of the world, the one that comes from experience, is what separates the knowledgeable from the wise.
Our thoughts are nothing without the actions that make the best of them. Arthus may have started his blog while doing nothing, but he had to do something to make it a success. We must move from thinking to doing. Only nothing has been accomplished by thoughts alone.
So, with all due respect to Arthus’s philosophy of doing nothing, I would challenge you instead to do everything that you can, to live your life fully and never let a moment go to waste. Never be bored, never wonder what to do, just do something. Go write a book, learn how to paint, act in a play, install Linux, write a blog, start a company, study religious texts, learn a new language, volunteer with a new group, connect with an old friend.
If you are not exhausted, you should be asking yourself: what else can I be doing?
It should be the same in our schools: are we giving students the opportunity to do everything in life that they can?
I think you may have missed the main point in Arthus’s last post.
Was Arthus not saying that he likes to do nothing because, in doing nothing, he’s able to get so much done?
Of course he does, but the successful things that come out of that nothing are those ideas that he does something with, that he takes initiative on. Arthus and I might very well be arguing similar points, and I hope we aren’t converging on an argument over semantics. However, there is a great deal to be said over the difference in mentality that we each take. You might say that Arthus advocates passive curiosity while I advocate active curiosity. Quite simply, I am not satisfied by resigning myself to doing ‘nothing’, and this is my alternative.
Tonight, I spent 7 hours driving around the flooding in Missouri. Shot 1300 pictures between me and my friend. I am not sure Arthus’ nothing can take him over 100 miles from his house.
From nothing very special to something very special! Amen!
Much continued success........
Best,
Jim
Else, why the lack of enthusiastic praise (in the form of comments to this post or blog reactions elsewhere) from your faithful?
To be well-traveled is good, but there is also much to be learned from the person that finds beauty and learning in that which is seen every day.
By all means, please disagree with me. If you all agreed, there wouldn’t be any reason to have written it.
And, you are absolutely right, seeing the beauty in and learning from the every day world is good.
Do you live purposefully?
Do you live purposefully? OMG! Sheer mastery! Prepare to set the hook.
(For all others see The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren)
We are not worthy......
Best,
Jim
Would you agree?
I hadn’t heard of Warren’s book before, and while I am sure it is interesting, I wasn’t alluding to it.
@Darren Draper:
You claim that, so what?
@All, to swing this back around in the direction of education:
I have attempted to argue for an outlook on life that provides for a wealth of experiences. This is because, I believe, those experiences build to produce an observer better able to make sense of their world.
Even if you don’t agree with my method of living life on purpose, I implore you to acknowledge the value in providing students with a broad range of experiences.
I am not asking you to pack your schedule or stop taking time to meditate.
I am asking you to encourage your students to turn their thoughts into experiences.
Indeed, tis better to acutally live the purposeful life then to read about it. However, having said that reading about The Purpose Driven Life may provide or reveal a deeper understanding.
Much continued success.
Jim
And you will feel bored. And once you are bored and jaded, life is no fun anymore.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed”- Albert Einstein