Red and yellow, pink and green: How disruption helps us see

My son, Lars, wakes up, every morning, enthusiastic about the day. He rips out of his room. “Mom. Dad. Orange juice. Bagel.” He wants to go to the park. He wants to play with toys. He wants to watch “trucks” on YouTube. He wants to play soccer. He wants to go downstairs. He’s two. He’s unstoppable.

Beyond the expected joys of his smiles and laughs and all of his firsts, unbeknownst to him, Lars has challenged me to examine my own beliefs, actions, and life. At three feet tall and two years old, he sees the world differently than I do. He interacts with it in different ways. He has different expectations of it.

Aware that there’s a difference, I’ve found myself trying to see the world from his perspective — or at the very least, trying to see the world from a new perspective. And I think I’ve benefited from doing so.

Dr. Cathy Davidson, education and innovation rockstar, explains why, in her book, Now You See It: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century:

“Without distraction, without being forced into an awareness of disruption and difference, we might not ever realize that we are paying attention in a certain way. We might think we’re simply experiencing all the world there is. We learn our patterns of attention so efficiently that we don’t even know they are patterns. We believe they are the world, not a limited pattern representing the part of the world that has been made meaningful to us at a given time. Only when we are disrupted by something different from our expectations do we become aware of the blind spots that we cannot see on our own” (p. 56).

Lars does this for me on a regular basis. Every time he gets excited about connecting one Lego block to another. Every time he hits the ball off his tee. Every time he sees a firetruck, or bus, or motorcycle. He’s inadvertently reminding me that he sees the world anew, and that I’d benefit from doing the same more often.

What would happen if more of us saw the world anew? What would happen if that happened more often? What would it do for our ability to solve problems? What would it do for our ability to identify problems before they happen?

“One more time” Lars asserts, jumping down off his bed, running to grab another book from the shelf.

“It’s time for bed,” I remind him.

“Of course it is,” his look says, as he smiles and reaches toward the shelf.