Letters to my sons
A collection of thoughts and lessons I've learned along the way for my little men,
and anyone else that's interested.
My sons,
Human beings are wired for play. In our earliest years, life basically consisted of eating, sleeping, and learning through play and exploration. If you walk into homes with young infants or toddlers, you will commonly hear the sound of laughter, of bubbly little voices excited about the brand new discovery that squishing the plastic giraffe causes it to emit a squeaking sound (both of my children grew up with Sophie the giraffe teething toys).
But something strange happens in elementary schools all around the world. We begin to change the daily environment of our children from one dominated with play and exploration to one filled with learning, memorizing, and study. Once they hit middle school, daily scheduled play time (aka recess in America) gets eliminated altogether. Free play time at home after school gets replaced with extracurricular activities and more homework. Even volunteering, which used to be a self-initiated activity stemming from the goodwill of one’s heart has become a required prerequisite by our educational systems.
By the time that child graduates from college, free play, which used to consume the majority of their days, has been transformed into something that we relegate to our 3 weeks of vacation a year if we’re lucky. That child now lives in a culture that serves the god of progress and achievement, a god which happily will take any and all time that we do not fight to hold onto. They are told that excessive play is immature, and are in an environment that regularly reinforces that their only purpose in life is to make progress.
The benefits of progress
Let’s be clear - I’m not advocating for us to play constantly and to ignore our responsibilities in favor of that play. Our world is increasingly complex and requires increasingly dedicated, educated, and creative people to continue to make it better for us all. And let’s make no mistake about it - our world is infinitely better than the one previous generations lived in, across any and every measurable metric.
Average lifespans worldwide are longer. Many deadly diseases have been either eradicated or made treatable and non-fatal. More people are being educated. There is greater (although not perfect) gender equality. There is less violence and crime. The number of people in the world who have electricity has increased from 70% in 1990 to 90% in 2022.
I know there will be some that argue that the world is a more dangerous and terrible place than our past - to those I will highly recommend two books: Steven Pinker’s ~The better angels of our nature~ and the late Dr Hans Rosling’s ~Factfulness~.
On a more local scale, we have persistent access to the internet. We have a plethora of options of electric cars and carbon-zero household products. We have the ability to say goodnight to our home assistant and have her turn off all the lights, close all the garage doors, lock all the doors, lower all the shades, and turn off the bed warmer that was keeping our bed at a balmy 80 degrees for us to climb in. (Okay, maybe that last one was just princess Sam in action).
No matter how you dice it, that progress has many benefits.
The evolving conditions for progress
Unfortunately, our conveyor belt approach to equipping our children to carry on that mantle of success is in need of an update. While it is true that decades ago our assembly line approach to education produced workers skilled enough to work the machines of the day that propelled our world forward, our world has evolved, and the needs and conditions for that progress have changed.
As our world continues to move from physical and manual work to knowledge work enhanced by greater automation, the need for creativity, imagination, and ingenuity have become the new baselines for advancing our world forward. And as it turns out, creativity cannot be taught, it must be fostered and nurtured.
Intentionally unproductive
As a child, I found myself constantly bored. Whether it was sitting in a boring Canadian history class (I must have read about Vimy Ridge, the one important thing Canada did in WWI a thousand times) or sitting at home after school with no access to video games and on-demand TV/movies, I was constantly bored. I strongly believe that that boredom played a huge part in helping me achieve much of what I have accomplished in my life.
That boredom was the fertile ground that enabled my brother and I to invent games to play. It gave me the time and space to dream up worlds and explore them in my mind’s eye. It gave me impetus to read, to imagine, and to dream. It allowed my mind to wander into all sorts of places and situations.
Granted, there were down sides as well. I got myself into a lot of trouble because of that boredom (my mom and my principal were on a first name basis…), and I found myself more often then not finding creative ways to be mischievous. While running around with a can of WD-40 and a lighter lighting spiderwebs on fire and flushing out ant hills wasn’t particularly useful (or safe, really), that time of non-productivity was a launch pad for all sorts of creativity.
It turns out that our subconscious minds are much more capable than our conscious ones. It also turns out that our conscious minds are much louder than our subconscious ones, so if we’re constantly engaged, our subconscious minds have little time to be active and to make connections on our behalf.
DaVinci knew this. Excerpts from his recovered notebooks showed that not only did the grand master paint and create timeless works of art, but he allowed his mind to wander to all sorts of unrelated and fanciful topics. In 1485 for example, he imagined the first parachute three centuries before an actual parachute was made and deployed successfully, and he detailed out specifications for it in one of his notebooks. It was constructed in 2000 and demonstrated to work successfully at 10,000 feet! He also imagined a submarine, a helicopter, and solar power among many other things.
How did he do all this?
He had intentional unproductive time. He knew that his mind needed rest, space, and margin to do its best work, and he actively created time to daydream. He would often go for walks with nothing on his mind and nothing in his hand but a pencil and a notebook and presently realize that he had filled many pages with seemingly unrelated thoughts. In 1994, Bill Gates bought one of DaVinci’s notebooks for $30M. Other notebooks have gone for $5M or more.
Creating margin
I will never be a DaVinci or a Gates. Neither will you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the greats of our world and integrate some of their practices into our lives. It turns out there are many studies that show a plethora of benefits of having margin and allowing ourselves to daydream. A few benefits:
- We become more creative. When we daydream, our subconscious minds make connections between seemingly unrelated topics, letting us maximize the learning and benefits we get from our experiences.
- We can build better relationships. Something my college advisor told me that has stayed will me to this day is the truth that if you want to make connections with people, you have to make space. People don’t have crisis moments when it is convenient for you to show up for them. They don’t have breakdowns, epiphanies, or life changing events happen to them on your schedule. If you don’t have space for them, they will find someone else that does.
- We become more interesting. By giving ourselves margin to daydream, to pursue hobbies and interests, and to explore and experience without agenda or purpose, we become more interesting! No one is interested in a cookie cutter person that just eats, sleeps, and works. People are intrigued by those who go off the beaten path and explore!
My sons, I know that there is great pressure for you to be always productive. I know you’ve been told that the stakes are high. I know that without a doubt those things were told to you with the best intentions. But they don’t tell the whole story. Be productive, yes. But also make sure you spend time to be intentionally unproductive - I guarantee you won’t regret it!