A Considered Embrace of Naivety

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the final part of my potted history

Welcome back to Go Prefigure. GPf’s continuing mission: to make space to imagine new social solidarities (I will expand on this in a future issue) and new ways of connecting.  To water the green shoots of radical hope and collective solutions, and share inspiring ideas and culture. To look up at the sky together and ask “what if…”

A Considered Embrace of Naivety

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on BBC Radio 4

In her Reith Lecture  Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said “A considered embrace of naivety can be the beginning of change”. This line stayed with me as I went about my day soon after Christmas, running around my local South London cemetery park, hearing birdsong whilst darting between ivy-bedraggled mausoleums.

To “unlearn” means “to make an effort to forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way”. In another way it’s shifting our thought patterns out of autopilot, the to-do list, and carving out space for imagining.

To give an example, to learn to ice-skate for the first time as an adult, or raise kids, you have to loosen your need to be in complete control. You “unlearn” your script and become immediately, terrifyingly, exhilaratingly present.

We have all been in meetings where asking a seemingly naïve question really cuts through the weeds of a discussion. Superficially sophisticated arguments often can’t withstand a finely differentiated question that cuts to the quick.

One of my most rewarding experiences in cultivating naivety was learning how to write poetry in my late 20s. Correction: I got out of my own way by unlearning some beliefs about needing to be “good” at everything I did. I learned to trust my naïve voice (that was always there) with the help of a generous mentor and a collection of wonderful people willing to stumble forward on the same journey. Together we felt safe enough to get rid of all the defences an academic education foists on us and just see what came out. Unlearning the urge to plan.

If you’re looking for more joy in your life, here’s a great, naïve question to start on: What did you enjoy doing when you were ten years old (before you learned the importance of being ‘cool’)?

In the policy world, some solutions that seem stupidly simple actually are worth exploring. “What if we just gave everyone enough money to live on?” was a question that sparked the idea of a Universal Basic Income, a policy with some promising results.

It’s not all about questions. Sometimes we need untie the banners of our chosen identity and uncoil the tight springs of our mind through play and laughter before we can understand something that’s calling us.

Go Prefigure: Explore cultivating a naïve state of mind. And see what emerges.