Seeds Grow in White Space

Have you ever wondered why you might get a great idea while enjoying a walk on the sand or join the dots while standing in the shower enjoy the warm water flowing over you? Did you know JK Rowling dreamed up Harry Potter in between train stations while the train she was on was not moving anyway and she daydreamed out the window?

Ideas come and flow often when we least expect it and sometimes can’t be squeezed because we are thinking hard and long on a problem. Ori Brafman’s book The Chaos Imperative tells us this is all because of the white space created in our brain. That part of our brain that works quietly behind the scenes organising our thoughts and finding ways to help us join the dots when we least expect it, busy neurones working away to birth our next Eureka! Moment.

We all know that the white space on a page is that part of the page that is left empty, unencumbered and in design while often called negative space, it is the bit essential for the design to be fully composed. In music the space between the voice or instrument is vital for the whole sound to be heard.

All the while where there is ‘nothing’ there is something. It is in the place where nothing is happening and most often because nothing is happening that an enterprising idea is formed and starts to take shape. As a social change agent you notice that ‘nothingness’ and shape it to start some good.

Here are some ideas on how you might create some white space for your ideas to bubble up and find a home. Listen to a completely different musical style to what you usually do for a day, have a note pad by your bed for ideas that come on waking up, dance for 5 minutes to have a break instead of making a coffee, talk to someone from a completely different background to you or age group (there is a lot of wisdom to tap into out there and it might just be around the corner or on the guy who is sitting next to you on the bus).

I love the line from Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem: It is in the crack that the light gets in. This is a great example of white space – the unstructured, yet mediation of the crack shedding new light on the situation. It is also useful to bring the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu who reminds us, it is the holes, those spaces making the wheel useful. So in your endeavours, make some space, for the ideas to be generated and find time to cut doors and windows for a room where your ideas maybe incubated and before too long those seeds will start some good!

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.

(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

@MoiraDes