Sitting at the water’s edge, a red bucket to one side, a blue toy shovel tossed to the other, hands shape wet sand into a castle. First there are the turrets, then the connecting walls. A moat is added – what is a castle without a moat. Then come shells and small smooth stones. A stick is planted in the center – seaweed attached and flagging in the wind. Satisfied, the builder steps back and watches as the tide pulls the prize back into the sea one wave at a time.

Nothing on our shoreline is permanent. So why do we build castles in the sand? Why do we balance rocks into towers. Why do we write messages with long sticks into the wet sand? Why spend time doing something that will not last? 

Because it is not the thing that matters, it is the act of building that brings us joy and moves us forward. It is the promise of a perpetually self-cleaning palette that invites us back to try again – applying all that we know each time. The erasing of our work is an invitation to do better next time and to create free from the pressures of false promise of permanence.

Learning – when done genuinely – is also a cycle of creative starting over. Just the tides rise and fall with no concern for our creations – certainty rises and falls, making way for new truths that change our thinking. A flat earth becomes a globe and everything must be re-examined. Our collective body of knowledge does not stack neatly or stand permanently. Learning does not simply add up – it twists and turns then leaps unexpectedly. 

Breakthroughs in thought move us forward. Recitation of what we know only leaves us stuck. The discovery of the unknown is what radically changes our understanding. But we must have the courage to begin again and again – free of assumptions and untethered from certainty. We must learn the rules – and not be limited by them – if we hope to break free and enter new territory. A man walks on the moon, looks back at our blue planet, and a universe of possibilities opens.

I hope this weekend you have the opportunity to walk down the wet sand with a bucket and shovel to build a castle. While you shape walls with your shovel and sink your hand to form the moat, give some consideration to how you might exercise the same freedom in school by learning driven by the expectation of becoming better each time – without end. Let go of certainty and embrace the freedom that comes with accepting the never ending cycle of learning.

Peace,
Chris