How would it feel to be tiny for an hour? Have you ever heard the phrase ‘before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes’. It is a call for empathy, to imagine yourself in another person’s situation before you condemn them or their choices. It can also have a wider resonance, we see and experience the world through our own experience of it – our gender, our skin colour, our size and shape, our culture, our financial situation etc. How might it feel to experience our world as someone else? How might people respond differently to you? What would you notice that you don’t notice now?
A tiny thought experiment
There isn’t a way of becoming another human, but perhaps you can explore your world as a tiny thing, and see how that changes your perspective on things!
Imagine what the world looks like to your teddy bears or even smaller, a tiny insect. What would your house look like to them? Would the staircase be a mountain? Might your shoes be the terrifying artefacts of a giant civilisation? Could the insects and spiders outside be friends or potential mortal enemies? How about if you have pets – imagine what a gerbil feels like to an ant!
A tiny adventure
Take a walk and see what wonders you find while you are pretending to be tiny. Take a look inside the valleys of cracked bark on trees and the canyons that are in between the paving stones on your street or in the park.
What curious things can you discover when you see the world from a different perspective? Do you notice anything different about your street/park/area? Do you think there are safe areas for small insects and more dangerous places?
If you were a tiny insect where would you hang out with your friends? What would you do when it rains? Where would you find food? What might a tiny school look like? Where would you go on holiday?
How does it feel to be tiny? Could you be tiny for a whole hour?
Take it further:
Take some pictures trying to show the perspective of something/someone tiny – what angles do you need to find to give the sense of a very tiny viewpoint?
Now you have been tiny for an hour and viewed the world from a tiny perspective, maybe you’d enjoy making a Miniature Campsite – I bet now you’ve been tiny you know exactly what it would need! And now you’ve been as small as an insect, how about making a bug hotel for your garden or the local park?
