Exercise 19 of 20 from the Playing With Purpose Student Edition
From Book 10: The Return (Exercises in Return)
The Parable
A photographer had spent ten books learning to see. Learning composition. Learning light. Learning how to capture the image she intended. But one afternoon she took a walk with no intention of photographing anything. No assignment. No purpose. Just walking and looking at what was there.
She noticed the way light fell on a fire escape. The pattern of pigeons landing on a bench. A child’s face in a window. A reflection she’d seen a thousand times but never actually seen before. She had her phone but didn’t take pictures. The looking itself was the practice. The act of paying attention was the creative act. She remembered something she’d known at the very beginning and forgotten in the work of becoming skilled. The creative act begins when you notice something. Everything else follows from paying attention.
The Exercise
Choose a time when you can walk for an hour with no destination and no agenda.
Leave your phone on silent if you must have it. You’re not there to photograph or document.
Walk slowly. Stop often. Look at ordinary things like they’re the most interesting things in the world.
Notice one thing deeply. The light on one wall. The way one person moves. The pattern of leaves. The sound of traffic.
Don’t try to make it into art. Don’t take pictures. Just notice. Let the noticing be enough.
When you return, sit for five minutes and remember what called to you. What grabbed your attention?
Ask yourself: when did I last look at the world this way? With wonder and no purpose?
Reflection Questions
1. What did you notice that you would have walked past before ten books of practice?
2. What was different about noticing without any intention to create something from it?
3. Did the walking itself feel like creative work, or was it a break from creative work?
4. How would your art change if you took a wonder walk every week, without any expectation of direct outcome?
5. What is the difference between looking and wondering?
What We Were Trying to Do
Many people believe that creative work is about production. Making things. Making things that are good. Making things that matter. This misconception makes them forget the original creative act, which is paying attention.
The truth is that the creative act begins before you pick up any tool. It begins when you notice something. When you really look at the world. That looking is the original creative work, and everything you make after is just translation of what you’ve seen.
Why It Matters
After ten books of practice, you might have become so focused on making that you’ve forgotten about seeing. You might be producing work without feeding the source. Without wonder, your practice becomes mechanical. Without wonder, you’re making from memory rather than from life.
A wonder walk is a return to the root of creative work. You’re not making anything. You’re just paying attention. That attention is what feeds all the making that comes after. This is how you stay creatively alive instead of just busy.
References & Further Reading
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go There You Are, Hyperion, 1994, Chapter 3: Meditation
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Beacon Press, 1975, Chapter 2: Mindful Walking
David Whyte, Consolations, Riverhead, 2015, Essays on Wonder and Belonging
Going Further
You don’t have to become a nature walker or seek out beautiful places. A wonder walk could be on your own street. Through a grocery store. Down a hallway you walk every day. The location doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of attention you bring to whatever is there.
This exercise is from the Playing With Purpose Student Edition by Greg Williams. The complete series of 650 exercises across 10 books is planned for publication in summer 2026.
This is practice. Nobody will grade this.
