The Courthouse

To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower.

William Blake

There’s a story of a college professor who assigned his students a 5-page essay to be written about their hometowns. One girl was from a small town in the midwest where nothing really ever happened. She went into her professor’s office hours and explained this. She emphasized how boring her town was and the lack of material it inspired.

The professor then asked her if the town had a courthouse, to which she replied, “It’s small and run-down but yes, we do have one.”

The professor then changed her assignment. He said, “Instead, I want you to write 10 pages about only the courthouse.”

The girl was incredulous! She couldn’t write 5 pages about her whole town, let alone 10 on the dinky little courthouse.

She went home and began to write. As she got deeper into her writing session she began recalling more and more details about the courthouse. She remembered the roughness of the brick, how the paint was chipping off of it in different places, and the smell of the flowers planted outside in the springtime.

Before she was done describing the exterior of the courthouse she had already written 12 pages.

The moral of the story: Life is most colorful when we notice the little things.

Our evolved brains are incredible. They condense, categorize, and group everything to make it easier for us to piece together our reality. They create mental shortcuts that allow us to complete complex tasks efficiently and confidently. However, this is both a blessing and a curse because, in the process of summarizing, we can miss out on the little details that matter most – the hidden flavor of our experience.

How often are you driving somewhere and space out only to snap back after a couple of minutes wondering how you got yourself safely to where you are now? You could be looking at your partner but not really looking at them. You could be at your job but not really working. It’s not what we are doing that is exciting but rather the presence we have while doing it.

So how then do we leave these mental routines behind and find excitement in the mundane?

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Voltaire

Kids ask the best questions. In the eye of a child, everything is new and exciting. They haven’t yet begun to pull together these mental processes to simplify their lives and are instead looking to expand the boundaries of what they believe is possible.

I think that’s one reason why we become enamored by them. Their thinking, or lack thereof, is what brings us back to our own childlike innocence. We see through fresh eyes and our curiosity about the world grows.

There was a video I saw during quarantine of a child asking what would happen if he and his dad drove over a banana. The dad replied it would get smushed under the wheel. The kid innocently asked, “How do you know, Dad?” The next scene was a picture of the results of the experiment. To no one’s surprise, the banana was smushed and stuck to the bottom of the wheel.

Regardless of the outcome, the kid still wanted to test their hypothesis. If I were to ask you what would happen if you stepped on some leaves outside, you might sum it up with “they would crunch.” However, it’s not as simple as that. Each step would produce a small symphony of sounds with different nuances between them. That’s what I want you to do.

I want you to test the hypothesis. Like a child, test the statement that “they will crunch.”

The goal then is not to expand our focus but to narrow it. It’s counterintuitive but in narrowing our focus, our perspective on life grows.

When we pay attention to the little things, we begin to see the workings of the bigger systems. For example, next time you pick up a book I want you to stop for a moment and think about what went into it.

The writer probably spent months or even years writing and rewriting the subject matter. Their work was edited and critiqued by the publishing company and the editors. Then the book needed a cover picture or art. The artist also may have spent months determining what suited the book best.

When the book finally went to print they needed ink, paper, glue, and laminate. The wood for the paper may have been logged in Oregon, the glue and laminate manufactured in the midwest, and the printer for the book on the east coast.

The trees for the paper required decades of rain and sunshine to grow to the proper size to be cut down. They may have even absorbed some of the CO2 that you’ve been breathing out.

All of this is just for one book.

Your curiosity doesn’t stop working when you become an adult. Curiosity and creativity are trained skills that can be taught and learned. Take the time to investigate the crunch of a leaf, an ant exploring a blade of grass in search of food, or the intricate details of a loved one’s face. I promise if you look with intention you’ll find something you hadn’t seen before.

Learn what it means to see a world in a grain of sand.