Creativity Monday: “Why” Like a Three-Year-Old

My daughter Anna is three. If you’ve been around a three-year-old for more than thirty seconds, chances are you’ve heard “why?” at least, oh…seven hundred times. Or maybe that’s just how it seems.

“Mama, is this a picture of a lamb?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it a lamb?”

“Well, it’s woolly and it’s on a farm, so I think it’s a lamb.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it woolly and on a farm?”

“Because it’s a lamb?”

This can go on indefinitely. I mean, indefinitely. Because as soon as you explain the woolly lamb, she wants to know when it’s Halloween. And why.

It can stretch one’s parenting (and explaining) skills, especially around Easter, which includes a bunny, eggs, Jesus—and in Poland, a lot of people carrying pussy willows around. Why?

Coincidentally, my Why’er reminds me of a creativity exercise that’s pretty revealing—it’s an interesting way to explore patterns and work with our Inner Critic. It’s super-simple to do and makes a great journaling or art journaling exercise.

Start with a piece of artwork you love, either one you made/wrote/composed/drew/etc, or one from someone else. Take a good long look at it and then play Three-Year-Old.

Ask: Do you like this piece? Why?

Maybe you like the colors. Well, why?

Maybe you say: Blue and green together are my comfort colors. I like working with them. I like wearing them. I like decorating with them. Why?

Maybe they remind you of a recurring dream you used to have about a blue and green pool of water in the forest. And later you had a ring with a stone that exact shade of blue-green and maybe you wonder where it is now and recall wearing that ring when you were a teenager and how it was your first real piece of jewelry, even though it wasn’t expensive or fancy but made you feel a bit grown-up anyway.

So we go from “I like the colors” to a really intriguing bit of memory and personal history and emotion and I don’t know about you…but that process makes me want to get out the blue and green and make something. Maybe a new ring for the really-grown-up me. What about you?

You can also take the exercise the other way and see why you don’t like something. That can be revealing as well.

The Why Dialogue is especially powerful when you start using it to harass question your Inner Critic. You know, that little voice that tells us what we don’t do well, or reminds us about our mistakes, failings, imperfections and those pants that don’t fit anymore. Yes, that Inner Critic.

The Inner Critic can really get off-balance when you start questioning why you can’t/shouldn’t/aren’t able to do something in particular. We often explain things with a basis in our personal history that’s more habit than fact, or more assumption than reality.

Say someone asks if you paint. “Oh, I can’t paint!” you might say. Why?

Keep why’ing. You might come to the conclusion that you simply haven’t tried painting lately—like, since grade school. Or maybe you tried before and “failed”. (Remember, failing is completely subjective.) Maybe you painted something and got negative feedback. Or maybe your best friend was better and so she became known as the “artist” and you became something else. Or maybe you don’t like what you think painting is—messy or expensive or Art-with-a-Capital-A.

When we ask why, it can take us to areas we otherwise simply ignore. Following a line of questioning can challenge our assumptions. You’ll come to some kind of conclusion, idea, or thought—and from there you can take the information and act as you wish. It’s a wonderful place of self-knowing and puts you in the position of choosing rather than passively being chosen for. At the very least, it offers food for thought and some great journaling opportunities too.

As for Anna? Well, some have told me the Why’er Stage lasts a few months, others said a few years. My father said: “It lasts until kids think they know it all…which is when they’re teenagers.” Looks like I’ll be getting plenty of practice, then.

In the meantime, happy Monday!