“Great things happen to your brain and your life when you Look Up and out”. An interesting and revitalising practice from Australia

As a consequence of our I - We - World model of citizen development, we have been interested since the beginning of A/UK in the inner/personal/practice realm.

The emotional literacy, the mental energy and willpower, that might sustain our pursuit of civic “alternatives”. We’re open-minded about where this sustenance comes from, and always on the look-out for methods that might work.

In our travels this week, and particularly in our engagements with Nesta and Slider (see this week’s editorial), we’ve come upon this fascinating project - which also seems like a mission - from Australia, called Look Up.

As the title suggests, Look Up is a specific practice, seemingly aimed initially at ungluing you from your small-screen trance. But the movement is also in fact a gateway, through which the creators pour much multidisciplinary wisdom - from architecture to neuroscience - about the importance of experience and attention.

We really recommend you deep-dive into the site, but here’s their intro, and below a graphic summary of their insights (fully elaborated in this PDF, “The Art and Science of Looking Up”).

The connection you make by looking up and out – at your streets, suburbs and cities, at the sky, trees or the horizon line, and at each other with a glance, smile or short conversation – is more than a way to pass the time. It meets a fundamental human need in our hardwiring for connection.

When allowed to roam, our brain does wonderful things. By letting it riff we allow ourselves the opportunity to increase creativity, develop new ideas, unearth insights, hone our intuition and solve problems differently by lengthening and broadening our viewpoint to think longer term.

When you look up at someone you light up their brain and start synchronising with them. And we each have the power to rewire both our brains, and those of the people we interact with.

In a complex, powerful and beautiful system such as the societies we live in, the power and beauty is in the connections between individuals. It is what shapes our social system and determines its health, and ours.

Far from being a waste of time, looking up and out is profoundly valuable and utterly necessary.

From “The Art and Science of Looking Up” (download PDF here)