As I wrote this article, I was unable to think of a good theme.

Time was pressing on me for the deadline, there are a hundred other things that need to happen at this time, and I could not think of what to write.

I was in fact stuck. Stuck for an idea. Then it struck me, why not write about stuckness.

So how can we view stuckness as a positive thing in our boys' lives?

In the great modern philosophical book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert M Pirsig states that stuckness comes from a place of not knowing what to do.

We may have purpose, but actioning that purpose requires specific and original steps to start. He uses the example of a student in his rhetoric class who wants to write of the history of their town. When they failed to submit their first draft, he suggested that the concept was too big, they needed to scale it back to the history of the main street. When they failed to submit their second draft, he suggested that the concept was still too big, they needed to scale it back further to perhaps an iconic building in the main street.

On the third draft, the student successfully submitted their work. When he asked the student what was the difference that made the difference, they stated that they sat in front of this building, they still did not know where to start, so they looked closer at the building, the design form, the architecture, the paint, the materials until they saw the original brickwork.

By closely observing the brick, they could not help but start writing about the brick. Writing about the brick was easy, it was a concrete concept, a regular solid so describing it was straight forward. From this point on the writing began to flow. By the end of the process the student had written their essay, not on the history of the town itself, but on one iconic building in their town.

Pirsig expands on this issue of stuckness that so many of his students, and people in general encounter throughout their lives, as being unable to form original ideas. He explains that modern schooling so often tells students what to think but leaves little room for them to explore how to think or how to form original thoughts about things.

The problem of stuckness weighs on peoples shoulders as they undertake large concepts with complex themes, or they try to recreate what ‘others’ think that they should do, rather than trust in their own original solution. 

Big concepts need to be broken down, so that all the details have been reverted to their simplest form. These simple forms, like the brick in the building, are easy to describe and to relate to others. Through this process, the student can overcome stuckness and have the confidence to present original ideas that contribute to capable solutions.