Look up.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved looking up.
Mostly towards the sun, mostly through branches of trees. More specifically, though: fully absorbing the rich mosaic of colours, and all of the light as it glints and dances and passes through the leaves — fresh and green, or glowing autumn rusts and golds.
But I’m not picky about what I look towards. The moon works, too. So do lots of other things.
I love looking up at flowers, especially ones whose open blooms face downward. This often results in strange-looking stances as I try to position a camera under a bloom, or as I kneel or lie flat on the ground, climbing through grass, covered in dirt, grinning ear to ear.
I love swinging on swing sets and leaning way back to hang upside down while I swing, gazing at the open sky or cloud formations, always alert for the chirp or buzz of a hummingbird, or the call or whoosh of a passing bald eagle.
I think it’s a habit that developed unconsciously in childhood. But intentionally continuing that habit into adulthood — and through the challenges and actual traumas of life — has served as a way to train my brain to keep switching up the perspective. Shaking things up. Staying fresh. To stay alert. To see what’s there.
Being able to see and understand different perspectives is key in so many areas of our lives. It makes sense that that “skill” should be transferable if I train it through my visual sensory intake, right?
When I was first inspired to post this concept of adult curiosity and looking up, it was accompanied by “Look Up,” a Joy Oladokun song that provided the perfect sonic “hug” to support you — the person I’m writing to — during the brief meditation.
The ultimate message of that song, though, is more one of hope and resilience than curious exploration. Its epic, soaring aural and emotional journey has helped lift me through many dark moments, and offered a simple reminder: things aren’t always perfect, and there is potential.
Sometimes that is all we need to be reminded of: the possibility — of there being possibilities.
One line in particular, asking us to look up and notice the sunlight, resonates strongly for me. As though my life-force were powered by photosynthesis.
The actual idea of looking up as exploration and curiosity, though, funnily enough — since you asked — was inspired by a different song.
There’s a moment recorded at a Vance Joy concert in Colorado where he tells a story about his mom, and how she would occasionally remind him when they walked together: look up, because you’ll see something you’ve never seen before. A nice building. A nice tree.
Anyway, the intro is to a song called “Alone With You,” which carries that same idea: it pays to look up, especially somewhere everything is moving fast, because you don’t know what you might see when you actually look around.
In the magical setting at Red Rocks, it’s easy to understand how James Keogh — the singer behind Vance Joy — could look up and exclaim that it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
I think there is something deeply innate in each of us that drives the quest for that sensation: being completely in awe, completely engaged and immersed in the beauty of THE THING in front of us.
It is behind the motivation to intentionally keep my eyes open, always seeking — that thing. Or rather, to try to let every thing (and being!) I encounter have the potential to be that thing in the moment I encounter it.
The practice of staying open and curious is even more important in places, like cities, where that experience can be really challenging to remain open to. In an environment that can be loud and busy, and can often seem full of uncaring and unconsciousness, we need to look up in more ways than one.
Anyone who knows anything about me at all knows that my love language is music.
I think in songs. I speak in and of lyrics. I have entire systems of existence and webs of memories that are intrinsically connected to music. Whenever I’m thinking of how to share an idea with someone properly and fully, I always default to: but what should the soundtrack be?
And 100 songs could be really, really good but still miss the mark when I’m seeking the bullseye. The thing that takes you there: to the center, the keyhole, the cornerstone of deep and true understanding.
Sometimes it’s not one song, but a playlist.
When I was a kid, I played with Lego and built miniature recording studios and radio stations, and often dreamed of being a disc jockey “when I grew up.” Building playlists and queues of songs to listen to in the moment are still some of my favourite things to do.
I think it’s funny that one of the shortest posts I’ve ever made extended into an article, a dossier, a manifesto of an editorial to myself.
I guess I hit some nerves — in part by opening the conversation around music, but also around the significance of intentionally exploring and keeping an open mind to different perspectives through that exploration.
Of looking in places you don’t normally look.
And looking for new things in places where you look all the time.
Look up. Take the long way. Get distracted.
Notice what catches your attention. Follow it for a while.
Not everything you do needs to have a point. Sometimes wandering and wondering is enough.
Curiosity is a practice.
