What's Waiting to Open?
Each Friday I’m sharing a creative experiment that gives you a practical demonstration of how creative thinking can expand your connection to the everyday world around you.
Have you ever had the experience of staring at something for so long that it morphs into something other than what you always think it means or does?
For example, as I was looking at an ordinary key, it somehow stopped being a key!
My mind started seeing what else this key could mean. An opening into a hidden room. Entry into unknown territory. Escape from something or someone.
Imagine if you allowed any object, like a key, to speak to you. What would keys know about entry? They might know what opens easily, what’s stayed locked for too long, and what we may already be holding without fully realizing it. When you let yourself see the key in this way, you realize that the most ordinary object can begin to feel like a clue. A clue that can expand your awareness of hidden meaning and possibility.
That’s the gist of your creative experiment for today.
So, choose some single ordinary object in your home. Just stay with it long enough that it stops being just an object. A key is just one possibility, but it could just as easily be a spoon, a teacup, a button, a zipper, a paint tube, or the handle of a drawer you open every day without noticing.
Give it three full minutes of attention.
Look at it as if you were really seeing it for the first time. Let it become more than just utilitarian. Let it show you something you haven’t seen before.
Then, even if it seems like a strange thing to do, ask yourself: What does this object know about the way I’m living right now?
Don’t look logically. Look at it so it could give you new insight.
Let yourself get really close to it—so much so that its familiarity gives way to something new. Let yourself be with that object long enough to let it reveal something your eye would miss with only a cursory glance.
Then finish this sentence without overthinking it: Today, the ordinary interrupted me by showing me…
You may be surprised by what comes to mind when you widen your perspective beyond the ordinary, the mundane and the assumptions we carry about the world around us.
And, as best you can, during your day, notice something else you may have given limited awareness to so that it, too, can suddenly feel alive with meaning—whether it’s a shadow on the wall, the steam from tea, the placement of your shoes by the door, the sound of keys in your hand.
The experiment isn’t to figure anything out. It’s to discover how new insight or awareness can come to you when you stop looking at life only for only its utility and start seeing life as an invitation to something more.
If something surprising began to open up for you through this little experiment, hit reply and tell me what object became your key and what you noticed.
Have you ever had the experience of staring at something for so long that it morphs into something other than what you always think it means or does?
For example, as I was looking at an ordinary key, it somehow stopped being a key!
My mind started seeing what else this key could mean. An opening into a hidden room. Entry into unknown territory. Escape from something or someone.
Imagine if you allowed any object, like a key, to speak to you. What would keys know about entry? They might know what opens easily, what’s stayed locked for too long, and what we may already be holding without fully realizing it. When you let yourself see the key in this way, you realize that the most ordinary object can begin to feel like a clue. A clue that can expand your awareness of hidden meaning and possibility.
That’s the gist of your creative experiment for today.
So, choose some single ordinary object in your home. Just stay with it long enough that it stops being just an object. A key is just one possibility, but it could just as easily be a spoon, a teacup, a button, a zipper, a paint tube, or the handle of a drawer you open every day without noticing.
Give it three full minutes of attention.
Look at it as if you were really seeing it for the first time. Let it become more than just utilitarian. Let it show you something you haven’t seen before.
Then, even if it seems like a strange thing to do, ask yourself: What does this object know about the way I’m living right now?
Don’t look logically. Look at it so it could give you new insight.
Let yourself get really close to it—so much so that its familiarity gives way to something new. Let yourself be with that object long enough to let it reveal something your eye would miss with only a cursory glance.
Then finish this sentence without overthinking it: Today, the ordinary interrupted me by showing me…
You may be surprised by what comes to mind when you widen your perspective beyond the ordinary, the mundane and the assumptions we carry about the world around us.
And, as best you can, during your day, notice something else you may have given limited awareness to so that it, too, can suddenly feel alive with meaning—whether it’s a shadow on the wall, the steam from tea, the placement of your shoes by the door, the sound of keys in your hand.
The experiment isn’t to figure anything out. It’s to discover how new insight or awareness can come to you when you stop looking at life only for only its utility and start seeing life as an invitation to something more.
If something surprising began to open up for you through this little experiment, hit reply and tell me what object became your key and what you noticed.