Aimee once showed me this video of a guy who mentored/taught/coached kids with ADHD and other attention disorders. He did an exercise very similar to the one we did yesterday wherein he gathered his students in a circle and instructed them to play catch with a ball but that you could not throw the ball until you had made eye contact with your intended target. This exercise challenged his students to slow down and focus in on paying attention one to another.
Around that time Aimee and I were doing children's ministry in Illinois in a very small church in a very small town with children who were predominantly under severe trauma and the affects of different developmental disorders. It was a constant struggle to get them to focus in on anything long enough to take home even the simplest concepts. Granted, I had just come out of a six-year academic career and so my "simplest concepts" might have been a bit too high-brow for them. But we used this game several times to get them to slow down and pay attention and it tended to do well. The one kid who really had trouble with the game was the fifteen year old non-developmentally challenged, non-traumatized boy who always wanted to trick the other kids by looking one way and throwing in another.
The game we did with David was very similar and I noticed how quickly we sped up even after he told us to slow down and try to ensure a good catch through a good throw. I think I kept my pace steady only because this memory was buzzing through my head because I, too, wanted to speed up. What is it that causes us to do that? To speed up, to take less time on something.
It makes me think about how when we get, say, a new job in a new area and our morning commute seems, at first, full of discoveries, and it feels long, but then, as we get acclimated, the morning commute becomes quick and unmemorable, our actions while driving, walking, etc., go to auto-pilot. Have we all played catch so long (we are all adults anyway) that the action becomes less worthy of study and taking time?
Probably thinking way too deeply about this, but it was interesting none the less.
No that is very interesting because we do function in "auto pilot" some times. For instance, I am a little different because once I find that "auto pilot" on my commute I used to work in Dallas Forth Worth area (many times it took a while to realize) I will force myself to find different routes or places to explore.
ReplyDeleteIn high school and college I had a lot of trouble following the "assiged route" to run for part of cross country practice. After many days of running miles and miles on the same route, same streets, same expectations that a few times I could run a few miles without looking at my direction becaus my feet and body allready knew where I was going to turn left, right or jump those bumps.
But I see your point of how we stop paying attention to the details of our actions once we get in "auto pilot." 7 years since I stoped running in school! We need to be "wild" and pay attention to those little details that apply we were are creating the story or beging to develop it.
What a great idea, being "wild." We need to push ourselves down the road less traveled, or even the road not traveled, and carve some new trails. I'm not normally nearly as adventurous as you, I find it very easy to let myself get stuck in a rut. However, after these classes I'm starting a new job where I will be literally going to a different place every day. I wonder how this will affect my timid "wildness." Thanks for the comment, Idilio!
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