Permission to feel: Wonder
Embracing Wonder in a World of Artificial Intelligence
The other day I was in a writing workshop and we were asked to take something ordinary and really pay attention to it; what did we notice about the texture; the way that we felt when we held it, and anything else that grabbed our attention.
I held a blanket of mine which had always felt quite comforting and cosy to me. Yet as I held and paid attention to it, I noticed that the material actually felt… lacking.
‘Why is that?’ I wondered, and I looked at the label. The blanket was woven from a man made material.
Then it hit me: it has no heartbeat.
There is a different kind of energy that is given off from a wool blanket, it is as if you can feel that this once belonged to something with a heartbeat. That got me on to thinking about Artificial Intelligence and the chatter about the threat of AI to writers and poets. Anyone now, thanks to AI, can be a writer or poet. Yet I wonder if AI is the acrylic blanket of creativity; for how can AI reflect the human lived experience, which is what poetry is ever trying to do?
I found this article interesting about AI and poetry, particularly this:
“The AI would produce something that made you think. It wouldn’t produce or reproduce what a human would write because that’s an incredibly subjective response, the lived experience was perhaps not there. But certainly, it would produce two lines that would then cause a human to think on more things.”
It made me feel more warmly towards AI than I had up until reading that article. I have been a bit
about AI, but if we look at it as a tool to enhance our wonder, to help us dive further into our thinking then that I find more palatable.
And, its mistakes may also be inspiration for…something.
Have you seen this going around online?
Apparently this is what AI came up with when asked to create a picture of salmon swimming upstream. Kind of gets you thinking about lateral thinking doesn’t it?
The above picture is a bit like that old saying of ‘What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom: you know a tomato is a fruit, but you wouldn’t put it in a fruit salad.’
Although, knowing my culinary skills, I wouldn’t rule it out.
Socrates said, ‘Wisdom begins in wonder’.
Wonder gives us permission to examine with that childlike curiosity; what is referred to in Zen Buddhism as ‘Shoshin’; the beginners mind.
In a world where we our curiosity can be traded for ‘certainty’, thanks to online search engines and social media, it is tempting to be complacent and devalue mystery and wonder. Yet wonder opens up a whole world of opportunity.
When I have a client battling with their addiction, they may rail against it, ‘Why do I have it?! Why do I get triggered?!’ They can stay locked in the battle with the addiction, trying to control it and outsmart it.
Or they can surrender to the mystery of it:
‘I am addicted, and right now this is how and when I get triggered, so what happens when I accept that and learn to take care of myself in the situation?’
Addiction is an attempt to take care of oneself. Acceptance of the addiction opens the gates to finding new, healthier ways to take care of oneself.
So how can you engender a bit of wonder into your life right now? Well, you could really pay attention to something, as I did with the blanket which sparked this whole post. It’s not the first time I have done that exercise. I did it a few years ago with an aloe vera plant and wrote this:
An Ode to Aloe Vera
Proud prongs
Pronounce your presence:
“I am here.”
Staccato spikes
Secure your sanctuary:
“Back off!”
And yet,
When you are
Cut
To the defenceless flesh within
The truth oozes out:
“I’ll heal”.
I thought about the way in which people’s defences such as denial, projection, or repression can be very successful in driving people away, but when we allow ourselves to break open emotionally, that is where healing can happen…
Another way is to take something mundane in your life and write about it as if it was extraordinary. I did that about a typical mundane day, when I did the school run, saw clients, randomly saw a boy with a painted face like a tiger, met a friend for lunch and then made dinner. I then wrote this, inspired by my youngest’s daily question of: ‘What did you do today mummy?’
One final thing. I was cheered to receive my Positive News subscription this week. It’s title page hailed, ‘What if everything turns out alright? The power of imagining the future we want.’ When we are in fear, the part of our brain that can imagine and create new possibilities shuts down. Offering ourselves moments of wonder keeps our brains open to creativity and imagination, which is what our future will be borne out of. Wouldn’t is serve us all better if we allowed ourselves to wonder. I wonder what we could create!
The world can feel a hard place at times, I really hope that this little wander into the wonder of wonder helps to bring some light to your day. If you feel like it did and that it could help someone else then please pass it forward!
That’s it for now!
‘Til next time.
Jacky x
Another thought provoking, comforting, enhancing read. Thank you for all the effort you put into these news letters. I look forward to them every Friday.