Purposeless Exploring
In one of our podcasts I talked a little bit about our motorhome trip to the Far North – actually the Far Far North, Cape Reinga, Spirits Bay, Houhora and so on.
Franceska and I had never been there. One of the reasons we bought the motorhome this year was to go places we hadn’t been, and to take our time with it. Along the way we got to talking about principles. And for conversation purposes on our slow journey we devised strategic principles and operating principles (yes, that is the sort of thing we talk about). We started with an operational principle: think vertical. It’s amazing what you can pack into a small motorhome if you go up rather than out. We had one about dump stations too but that might be a little technical for our purposes here.
Then we got on to the strategic principles. Drifting down a gravel road to Rarawa Beach, we realised that one of the things we were doing was exploring without thought to discovery. In other words, just exploring. We might discover something wonderful, we might not. Doesn’t matter.
I found the process of exploring without purpose was good for my soul. We spend so much of our lives being purpose driven and outcome driven – I've got this objective by that date as a step towards that long-term goal. And of course, as an Achiever on the Enneagram scale, my need to hit targets of any kind is hard-wired.
So it was a wonderful act of mindfulness to let go of having to achieve, and just go and have a look. It’s like singing without thought to who’s listening, or reading without thought to learning.
Of course, purposeless exploring can only be momentary in the scheme of things. In reality we have to be 99% outcome-driven and purposeful. But allowing ourselves to be 1% purposeless exploration has three benefits: first it’s a great switch-off and recharge; second, it’s an almost spiritual experience of just being, not doing; and third, you might be surprised by what you might find.
Having written this piece, I followed a link on something I was reading (exploring with a little bit of purpose), and found a blog called “The 11 rules of succeeding with nonsensical ideas” (btw there were 12 “because why restrict yourself to a predetermined number?”). It has a couple of cracks at excessive logic and rationality, and in the context of explore without thought to discovery, I liked some of his rules:
Test counterintuitive things, because nobody else will – the iPhone was developed by “one slightly deranged man” who didn’t like buttons
Dare to be trivial
Dare to look stupid
Take it with a grain of salt – we shouldn’t do these things all the time. It’s true that “rationality is the enemy of alchemy”. But we don’t need alchemy every day: 99% of the time we need consistency and order. However, that 1% of disorder, creativity, purposeless exploring is vital because it can shape tomorrow’s normal.