Be Pointless for a Bit - The world of little ideas

I was driving my son to school this morning, and to the left is a forested area that has had a lot of coppicing recently, and the trees are quite sparse. Standing in a clearing was a beautiful little cherry tree filled with white blossoms. The ones in my garden have only just come into flower, so they aren’t quite open yet. But…

I had the sudden inspiration to go for a walk and search for cherry trees in bloom.

I liked that. A little idea. It didn’t have any troubling words in it, like maybe, or hopefully, and if only I had time. It simply said, “Go for a little walk to find a cherry tree in flower.”

There wasn’t a there about it, or a if you go all the way over here, you might find one. No. Just walk… and see.

And I thought, I know just the place, but I don’t know if it has cherry trees. And without planning anything, without having washed, cleaned my teeth, changed my clothes from the day before, or put on my walking boots, I parked the car by a little-known path, and the first thing I saw was a cherry tree.

But even though my feet were already getting wet (I was wearing an old pair of Xeros), I found myself walking further up the path and down to the river. Stopping once in a while to smell cherry blossoms and marvel at snails.

It’s quite a scramble down to the river, but it makes lots of crunchy noises under my feet where autumn leaves have bunched up. And I chose to just pootle around up and down, swooshing through leaves for a while. How wonderful, swooshing. It makes a nice sound, better than the noise of cars going by in the distance (that I could hear at the start of the walk). Is that so? Do the sounds leaves make as you swoosh through them sound better than passing cars? To me, they do.

The moral of this short tale is that sometimes we get an idea that says Hello, how are you doing? Would you like to be doing something else right now? How about this… but we choose not to. Maybe we are busy with important things, and swooshing through leaves isn’t on today’s to-do list for serious people.

Mmmm.

If you are the sort of person with to-do lists and post-it notes on the fridge door, well, why not make a “little idea” list? Things to get you out-from-the-desk, from-the-cleaning, from-the-job, and on moments when you lack inspiration, you could randomly select one from your list, pick up a rucksack and a travelling hat, and head out. Go somewhere without an endpoint if that feels right.

Some Little Ideas:

Find a fir tree on its own and take a photograph

Search for a flower that is growing in the cracks of a city pavement/sidewalk

Stand on a big stone in the middle of a river

Who can find the biggest stick?

Which pigeon eats the most bread in the park?

Follow your shadow to see where it takes you

You get the idea. Something small. Not a project. Not a bucket-lister, or an aspiration. Not even a plan. Something that helps you wander. Aimless.

Be pointless for a bit.

Heath