Transcripts
1. Class Intro & Welcome: Instructions For Living a Life by Mary Oliver, "Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." I remember first encountering this poem when I was fresh out of college and being impacted by its straightforwardness and truth. She writes in another poem, "To pay attention: that is our endless and proper work." If you gather the advice from our most loved creative minds, you'll see how paying attention keeps coming up as the essential skill to cultivate for a beautiful, meaningful, and creative life. My name is Dandan, and I'm a Top Teacher here on Skillshare, a Documentary Filmmaker, and wearer of many creative paths. Through my own professional and personal journey, I have come to believe that being able to notice what's around you is a foundation for inspiration and living a vibrant life. It connects you with wonder. It helps you cultivate an original perspective. It enlivens life and makes it more enjoyable. It connects you with the gifts of life that you often take for granted. It provides an antidote to the scattered energies of our modern times. It brings you home to yourself. These are just a few of the many benefits that come from paying attention. What does paying attention mean? For me, it means noticing what's around you. As simple as that sounds, it's not so easy. It's truly an art and not one that's taught very often. In my life, I have been lucky to encounter teachers full of champion's ability and stretch the limits of my perception, radically enhancing my life and creative work. I'm so happy now to pass on the best of this knowledge and invite you to grow in your capacity to notice, to see, not just look; to listen, not just hear. In this class, we're going to deepen our ability to pay attention through a guided seven-day journey that will take you through the five senses. All of the exercises can be done at home, and they were designed to be fun and make you feel like a kid again. We're going to play, we're going to re-examine, we're going to slow down and savor, all with the intention of becoming better, deeper, and more connected observers of the world. You will need around 30 minutes every day to complete the exercises. The class workbook is included, which I recommend printing before the course begins. Are you ready to discover the extraordinary wonders right where you are? All right. Get set, let's go.
2. Class Approach: As I mentioned in the introduction, this class is really one in which you will get out of it what you put in, so I recommend entering with an open beginner's mind and committing to completing all of the exercises. Some of these exercises might seem really simple and you might think, "I'm not going to get anything out of that, it's better to skip it." However, I strongly encourage that you do the exercise even if you feel resistance. Just like how becoming good at basketball requires simple drills, the art of paying attention requires practice. These exercises quietly add up, and by the end of the week, you'll be surprised by how much more deeply you'll be able to notice what's around you. If you can't keep up with the seven-day schedule, don't worry, just pick a rhythm that works best for you. The most important thing is that you commit to completing all of the exercises. Can't wait to see what you share.
3. Class Assignment: Your assignment is to upload one or more of your completed workbook pages to the Class Projects page. Then write down your insights gained from this class. This is a vibrant, supportive community where we learn a lot from each other, so what you post is likely to inspire someone else in this class and vice versa.
4. DAY 1: The Monastic Pecan Warm-up: The first thing we're going to do, is welcome ourselves into the space of deep noticing through the sense of taste. I learned this exercise from a head monk of a monastery I was staying in, in Japan. On the first day, he invited us to sit down and handed us a pecan nut. We were told to take one slow bite at a time and fully experience what it had to offer. It was such a simple 10 minute experience, but one that I've never forgotten. So I extend the same invitation to you now. Allot a minimum of five minutes, preferably in a quiet undisturbed space for this exercise. Prepare your pecan. If you don't have a pecan, no worries, anything will do like a piece of fruit. Turn this into your own private tea ceremony with a cup of tea. Pause this lesson now and continue when you have everything ready. Like in the monastery, we're going to invite the sound of a bell to begin the session. First, sit down and get settled back into your body. Feel the weight of your bones, the firmness of the ground beneath your feet. Now, take three slow, luxurious deep breaths letting go of all tension and worries with every exhale. When you feel ready, pick up your first item and focus all of your attention on how it feels between your fingertips; all of its edges and textures. Imagine you are like an alien from outer space, feeling and seeing this for the first time. Notice all the colors, patterns, and details present, marveling at this work of art. Now, take a deep smell and notice every molecule of its scent in your nose, allowing your perception to travel down into the depths of its aroma. Now, take your bite. Close your eyes and chew slowly, really savoring the tastes and textures. Try to know your awareness into the depths of every flavor, registering every bit of sensation and information through your taste buds. Now bring your awareness to different parts of your tongue. Are the tastes different in these different sections? If you're like me, you'll find how surprising the simple act can be, how deep your sense of taste can actually go. I hope you'll notice how much you actually miss when you engage in your daily ways of eating. I hope this exercise has been an enjoyable warm-up for your ability to pay attention; one that will just keep deepening as we continue through this class. I will see you in the next lesson.
5. DAY 1: Exhausting a Place: When I was a university student, I had this art teacher who really taught me how to see. The main way he trained our ability to see was through making lists, writing down everything you see. To my delight, as I continued my creative exploration, I kept discovering how many other creatives, like the poet Marie Howe, write lists to train their ability to pay attention as well. As simple as this act sounds, it is surprisingly powerful. It allows you to concretely practice noticing the things around you, while also allowing you to see what you've missed. It shows you how even a small space contains multitudes. In fact, the French writer Georges Perec calls this practice, "Exhausting a place." If you turn to page 2 in your workbook, you'll see the first exercise. Instead of listing down everything, we're going to look for the things we've never noticed before. First, choose a familiar place. This can be a room, your kitchen, for example, or a park. Then start looking for things you have never noticed before and write them down in a list for at least 10 minutes. The things you notice can be small or big. It can be a quantity or a quality. In fact, I encourage you to look for things in all of these categories. For example, when I did this in my studio, I noticed for the first time how there were small dots on my light switches. I noticed how there were so many swirly knuckles on my wooden kitchen table. I noticed how there were six electrical outlets in the room. I also noticed how many things in my place where either square or rectangular, and began wondering how my experience would change if there were more curves. When you're done, take a mental note and reflect on what lessons you're taking away from this exercise. I hope this exercise will help you awaken your visual perception. Put you in touch with the poetry of the everyday. Remind you how even the places you think you know have endless surprises to offer. I will see you tomorrow.
6. DAY 2: Viewfinding a la Corita Kent: This exercise comes from one of my creative heroes, Corita Kent. Corita was a Catholic nun who was known for her unconventional, revolutionary pop art that spread messages of love and justice. She was a legend at challenging her students to see a new ways. One of her cornerstone practices was reframing the familiar by examining the world through an instant finder. An instant finder is like a tiny frame you carry with you. You make it by cutting a small square in a piece of cardboard or stock paper. In this exercise, we're going to re-examine something familiar by using an instant finder. Doing this is a powerful way to retrain your ability to see because it decontextualizes what you're used to seeing. We're often blind to what's around us because of their familiarity. So looking at these things with the viewfinder provides us with a fresh perspective, making them visible again. You take in things as they are, which can be surprisingly refreshing. Make a viewfinder, chose a small spot like a kitchen table or large object like a car that is familiar to you. Look at the chosen object to focus through the viewfinder, draw or paint each frame really noticing what is inside. This isn't about artistic ability, but about you seeing the act of drawing as a way to pay attention and record what you see. Repeat this six times seeing every frame as its own unique work of art. A page for this is included in your workbook. Reflect on what this exercise has taught you. Have fun and see you tomorrow.
7. DAY 3: Scavenger Hunt: I find a really fun way to train in your ability to pay attention is by doing a scavenger hunt. Only this time I've designed the scavenger hunt. It's not about finding things so much as it is about paying attention. This scavenger hunt can be done in your home or favorite place. Feel free to do this with your kids or loved ones. In your workbook, you'll find the scavenger hunt list. There's one term that will make you scratch your head, infrathin. This is a term coined by the surrealist painter Marcel Duchamp, to describe a state in between states. For example, the warmth of a seed that has just been vacated, the heat of paper that just came out of a laser printer, the swoosh sound of email being sent. When you find the elements, include a photo of it in the scavenger finds page of your workbook. Can't wait to see what you share. See you tomorrow.
8. DAY 4: Slow Looking: Now that we've stretched our ability to notice, we're going to take it deeper. It is commonly assumed that vision is immediate, but there are details, orders, and relationships that take time to proceed. Take a moment now to reflect on the last time you really spent at least 10 minutes looking at one thing in stillness. If you're like most people, it's probably hard to find that memory. A study by the Modern Museum of Art in New York, found that people spend a median of 17 seconds in front of any given painting, mostly through their phones. In response, museums from all over the world conspired together and created a Slow Art Day in which visitors were encouraged to look at a painting for a minimum of 10 minutes. Many reported how transformational this experience was and how it allowed them to connect with their life afterwards in new ways. I personally was given this challenge by an art curator. It not only opened a window into my perception, but it also deepened my ability to pay attention in my everyday life. It made me understand how there was a difference between looking, merely spotting something visually, and seeing, absorbing what's in front of you with deep attention. The instructions. Pick a work of art. This can be digital or in person, or an object like a tree that fascinates you. Spend a minimum of 15 minutes looking at it up close, writing down observations in the page provided in your notebook. Then move back and spend a minimum of 15 minutes looking at it from afar. Also noting down your observations, in the dedicated page of the workbook. What changes with the shifting distance? Write down your observations. Something to keep in mind. If it feels boring, you know you're doing it right. In fact, the American composer John Cage said, if something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If it's still boring, then eight, then 16, then 32. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all. Here's an excerpt from a slow observation of Monet's water lilies painting done in a museum on a Sunday afternoon for three hours. The full report is in the class resources section. The water lilies float delicately on still water, but only at a certain distance. The painting is like an optical illusion, turning inside out as one approaches and backs away from it, seemingly still and serene from a distance. The scene begins to melt as I come closer. Everything starts to loosen. The silvery water breaks out of its crystalline state and begins to whirl blending the reflections on its surface. The reflections of sky and vegetation ooze a distinct outlines as they move with the circling water. The colors are so loose, so marginally unified as if they would scatter and separate if I shook the painting. On the left, the moving water molds the edges of vegetation into blue and brown whirls. It is almost as if the circling waters smears and blends the paint for the artist. I hope this will give you the permission to slow down and take some luxurious moments to really pay attention. For tomorrow, you will need a smellwalking guide, which can be found in the class resources section. Lots of fun await. See you tomorrow.
9. DAY 5: Smellfies & Smell-mapping: Paying attention is a multidimensional act. It requires all of our senses. But because our society is so visually driven, we often lose touch with our other senses, and therefore diminish in our ability to pay attention. In these upcoming sections, we're going to practice noticing the hidden richness of our worlds through our senses besides that of seeing. We've already played with a sense of taste in our first exercise. Now in this section, we're going to perceive through our nose. Take a moment and reflect on how many smells you notice every day. According to smell scientist, Kate McLean, a person on average takes around 24,000 breaths a day. Stop and think. How many of those breaths are you actively noticing what's present? If you're like most people, chances are that it's very few, localized to when you're cooking or eating. However, as Kate McLean will tell you, our everyday life is visited by numerous smells that can make us feel more alive and deepen our relationship with our environment. In fact, she makes smell maps, in which she creatively chats the smell she encounters in different places around the world. To show you an example of what it's like to deeply pay attention to smell, here is Kate McLean's olfactory observation of Amsterdam. It's barely spring in Amsterdam as warming scents are thrown around by gusting winds. The background smells mainly comprise of canal and chocolate. Canal is a savory smell, at once hollow and watery with algae, and the chocolate powder clouds emanate from the chocolate factories of sand down. The episodic for localized smells include waffles in the market, freshly baked, warm, sweet, sugary encounters in the new market and other places. Flower explosion from the endless pots of tulips across museum plying and bloom and marked. From the construction and reconstruction emanates a woody, sweet, dry resonance paint aroma. In the Vondelpark, sense of leafy fresh rain and the smell of some diffuse through unfurling leaves. A sass tearing assault from street food stands and the cafe smell of coffee with friends, and occasionally of honey sweetened milk tea. A warm spiciness drift out from the Asian, and ceremonies, restaurants and supermarkets, and the city's many house hotels contribute to the smell of fresh laundry coming from basement windows and wall-extractive fans. Surprising smells included are books where less salubrious smells were anticipated. In this section, we're going to go on a centered adventure. We're going to harness the power of our noses to deepen our ability to pay attention. Using Kate McLean's Smellfie kit as a guide, we're going to conduct a smell walk, paying attention to the smell-scale. Have your Smellfie guide on hand. We're going to be noting down our observations in these sheets. Choose a small area or walking route. This can be a street, this can be your house, this can even be your favorite park or market. You'll want to limit this exercise to 45 minutes to avoid smell fatigue. As you can see in your Smellfie guide, there is a chart that organizes what you will smell for. You're going to aim to record a total of 12 smells using three different methods. The first four are smells that are already present or drifting in the ambient environment. For example, the smell of fresh cut grass in your lawn. The next four smells are ones you will actively seek out by getting up close and curious. For example, you can crush leaves and see what they smell like. You can smell a metal fence and see if that has a smell. The last four smells are ones in which you choose in a single category. For example, people, leaves, bicycles, shop doorways, and closets. Smell four different items that belong to this category to see how they smell differently. Then for your last step, you will choose a summary smell that you feel represents the place you have explored for today. If you want to take it even further, I invite you to create a smellmap from your findings. To do this, create a map however way you like, in which you placed all of the smells you have found. As you can tell, you have full license needs to get creative here. Please do share your map on the Projects page. We would love to see what you discover. I hope this will be eye-opening for you, or I should say nose-opening, and deepen your understanding of what it means to pay attention. Happy smelling. For tomorrow, you will need three objects of different sizes, shapes and textures. A blind fold is optional but recommended.
10. DAY 6: Deep Touch: Yesterday we focused on our nose. Today we're going to focus on our senses of touch and hearing, starting with touch. For this exercise, you will need a blindfold. Choose three objects of different shapes, size, and textures, and spend two minutes touching each one as if you're an Alien from outer space and it's the first time you've beheld them. Feel whether any sensations change, like coldness dissipating into your warm fingers, and become extremely present to the tactile sensations as if you're melting your awareness into them. See with your skin, reflect. What details come up that you've never noticed in this object? What can you notice through your touch that you can't notice with your eyes? I know this might feel like a trivial exercise, but I hope it gave you a taste of how deep your sense of touch can go. Imagine bringing this tactile awareness when you're going about your day. Like when you're brushing your hair, cooking, cleaning, or hugging your loved ones. I promise it makes whatever you're doing much more enjoyable.
11. DAY 6: Deep Listening: Listening is such an important component of paying attention. But we often tune out the sounds around us as we go about our day, and I don't blame you. When we're working, noise can be really distracting. However, when you take a moment and intentionally listen, these noises can transform from being annoying and distracting to being fascinating. So for this exercise, we're first going to time travel back to this moment. In 1952 in Woodstock, New York, a pianist named David Tudor gave a highly anticipated performance of a new music composition by John Cage. Tudor sat at the piano, place the sheet music on the music desk and close a lid over the keyboard. There he remained doing nothing. At one point, he lifted the lid of the piano and close it again. Then he repeated that process, and the performance ended. These three movements added up to four minutes and 33 seconds. This composition, consisting of a distinct absence of music and intentional noise, was titled 4' 33", and it became John Cage's most famous work. So for this exercise, we're going to invoke the same spirit. Set a timer for four minutes and 33 seconds. Close your eyes and just listen. Paying attention to the sounds in the background that you usually don't notice, like the sound of the room or the sound of air conditioning. Listen with your whole body as if your body was an ear. Feel into the sound waves and see how deep you can melt your perception into the sound. Don't just hear, listen. Congratulations on making it this far. One more day to go, I will see you tomorrow.
12. DAY 7: Integration Day: By now, I hope you're feeling fascinated by all the things present in your world that you have missed. Paying attention is definitely an art, and like all art, requires practice. The good news is that this practice doesn't have to take much time, and can be easily enfolded into your busy day. Today is all about integration. We're first going to learn three simple quick techniques that easily enfold noticing into your daily life. Then we're going to undergo a guided reflection that revisits a common barrier to paying attention which often robs us of the wonder, and delight found in our lives.
13. DAY 7: Mindfulness Hacks: This section will present three small, easy ways in which you can sneak in the practice, paying attention as you go about your day. The Novelty Game. Psychologists coined the phrase inattentional blindness to describe how we notice something less because of its increased familiarity, and it is one of the biggest blocks to paying attention. To counter this, you can do this simple exercise. Every day on your routine walk or commute, find something you have never noticed before. Make this a fun game for yourself. This is so simple that I invite you to do it now. Take a moment to notice one thing that you have not noticed before in the current place you're in. The Four Senses Pause. So this is when you take one minute to perceive through your four senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching. Each for 15 seconds. The great thing is you can do this anywhere. Start with their sense of sight, fully being present to whatever you're seeing. Then close your eyes and move to your sense of hearing, noticing your environment through its sounds. Third, move to your sense of smell, paying attention to any scent that may be present. Finally, move to your sense of touch by feeling whatever is touching your body, whether that's your clothes, your chair, or the ground underneath your feet. Doing this not only serves as a mini-training session for your ability to pay attention, but it is also incredibly recentering during the daily hustle and bustle. Often when we are in boring, mundane places, we shut off our senses and disconnect from what is around us through our phones. Nothing wrong with that. However, if you want to train in your ability to pay attention, I find that these boring places are often treasure troves of wonder and the miraculous. It just takes a little digging with your perceptual shuffle. Whenever you find yourself waiting in a boring place, for example, the doctor's office or the bus station, search for the hidden beauty or the miraculous. A good way to do this is to ask yourself, "How did this thing get this way?". For example, when I was sitting in my doctor's office one day, my attention was drawn to the water dispenser. How the water actually came from a flowing spring which melted from snow on some mountain somewhere, and now was free for me to drink without needing to do any work. As another example, when I was waiting in this drab bus station in Milan, instead of looking through my phone, I looked for treasure. I found this beautiful snail in a bush, and just lost myself observing its slow graceful movement. I was amazed at how unique its shell was, and this spiral, actually, became the inspiration for the logo of my creative studio. Get ready to be surprised.
14. DAY 7: Revisiting Barriers : If there's one big barrier to paying attention is probably that of busyness, an addiction we have as a society. We're taught from a young age that we should always be flitting from one thing to the next, accomplishing our goals as quickly as possible whereas paying attention requires you to slow down and do nothing productive. It requires you to stop thinking about the future and instead, savor the present moment without an agenda. Believe it or not, I was one of those productivity addicts before. So I wanted to revisit productivity and offer some reflection that might help you see it in a different way. One that will allow you to give yourself more permission to smell the roses and really pay attention to what's around you. First off, if you feel guilty for taking a break or slowing down, the best way to dismantle it is to understand its root. Reflect, and ask yourself, why do I feel like I need to be busy or productive all the time? Chances are that being busy or productive gives you something, a feeling that fills something in you. Another way to ask this question is, what does this constant productivity and busyness give me? Is it really driven by survival or basic needs? Or is it driven by something deeper, like a sense of self-worth? Tributaries of this question can help you source the route. Do you feel more worthy as a person from being busy all the time? Do you feel like others see you as being more important when you are constantly busy? Does being busy all the time distract you from facing loneliness or parts of yourself you have not come to terms with? Does your concept need to be productive come from a scarcity mindset which you believe there will never be enough so you can't get off the busyness treadmill? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying how busyness and productivity are bad things. They are essential to accomplishing our goals. What I'm talking about is when busyness and productivity become things that contribute to a deep disconnection with life from our ability to notice what's around us. If that's the case, dig deep and examine whether you believe striving this constant busyness are true and really adding value to your life. Also, contemplate this. You might be eliminating belief that you can't be productive and savor life at the same time. Through my own journey, I have found that you can do both. Yes, you might not achieve your goals as fast, but this will be outweighed by the sense of joy and aliveness you receive through moments of savoring and deep noticing, which paradoxically gives you more energy and prevents burnout. You know that phrase "Take your time". That's one of the kindest things to offer each other these days. When was last the time you offered yourself that gift? One last thing to consider. Steven Kotler, who studies optimal performance from a neurological perspective, wrote how recovery is an essential part of doing your best work. One that is sadly skipped by high achievers. He defines recovery as a state that arises when the brain waves slow down from the Beta range, which comes from active thinking and doing into the Alpha and Beta range, which comes from savoring and being mindful with your senses. I hope this triggered some fruitful reflection in you. If it did, I invite you to share your thoughts on the discussion page as what you share will likely benefit someone else in the supportive community and vice versa.
15. Course Wrap-up & Parting Thoughts: Congratulations on finishing this course. I hope these exercises and insights have enlightened some part of you and have helped you reconnect with the wonder in your life. I hope they have helped to see how everything can be a source of inspiration. Writer, Annie Dillard, puts it nicely. She writes, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives," and when you pay attention in your daily life, you'll see how your life as a whole becomes more vivid, inspired, and delightful. Besides the magic it offers, I believe paying attention can also be a revolutionary act. Journalist, Michelle Dean, wrote, "Paying attention is the only thing that guarantees insight. It is the only real weapon we have against power, too. You can't fight things you can't actually see." This is also a powerful act that begins with ourselves and then expands to make our world a better place. I hope you have lots of fun with it. If you enjoyed this class, I invite you to check out my other courses on my instructor's page. One class I recommend is called Thriving Through Uncertainty in Your Creative Path. It shares seven techniques and framework shifts to successfully navigate the challenging, messy middle phase of your projects or transition in your life path. Known as a Wild West, this is the stage that happens after the exciting beginning phase filled with the unknown, doubt, setback, and deserts of progress. This is one of the most important classes I've taught. Come and fortify your ability to reach your dreams. Thank you all so much for joining me on this rich, fun, and surpriseful journey. Until next time.
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