When you were a child, you played make-believe. You whispered to animals and frolicked through grassy fields and chased misty rainbows in the sky. When you were a child, time bent and slowed to your will. However, now that you have grown up, time doesn’t spare you that same liberty anymore. You rush from school to practice to homework like you’re acting out a predetermined script: eat, sleep, repeat.
Somewhere along the way from childhood to adulthood, your whimsy quietly slipped away.
Yet in the midst of this routine, there’s a movement taking root on social media– one that inspires people to not just spend their lives, but savor it.
Content creator Anni Kim, or nuffsaidchannel on Instagram, is on a journey to rediscover childhood whimsy. In her 3-month “Rewire Your Brain” series, Kim tries a new challenge each day to “wake up [her] brain” from “living on half asleep on autopilot mode.”
The actions don’t have to be grand. In fact, her most viral videos are of her doing seemingly mundane activities– dancing in her room, admiring a sunset, wrapping herself up in a “blanket burrito,” standing in the rain, drawing a comic strip, and staring at herself in the mirror for five minutes.
It’s not the task itself that sparks her whimsy, but rather the intention behind each task.
When Kim rolled down a hill for Day 61 of her challenge, she didn’t worry about muddying her clothes or other people staring. All that mattered was her laughter and reflection afterwards.
“I’m not gonna lie, I had more fun than I thought,” she said in one of her videos. “Initially I was scared because I was like, oh, people are gonna think I’m weird. And then I realized nobody cares. I think it’s good to do these things [to remind me] it’s my life that I’m living and not theirs.”
Oxford Languages defines whimsy as “playfully quaint or fanciful behavior,” but at its core, people like junior Ananya Balaji say that “being whimsical is embracing the activities or forms of expression that you want to but haven’t gotten around to.”
For Balaji, her whimsy comes in the form of art. She uses a variety of mediums to make sculptures that are infused with unexpected elements.
“I like incorporating [whimsy] in kind of contrasting what’s expected with what’s not. If you see a sculpture that is made out of clay, you can contrast it with glass. You go from really dense to really vibrant and clear and translucent, [which] gives it a nice effect,” Balaji said.
For others, whimsy is built into their daily routine, like junior Alice Emelianova.
“I’ve been making outfits since middle school. I wear greens usually, like whimsical forest fairy vibes,” she said.
Whimsy is not just an abstract concept, but a way of life that leaves people feeling more fulfilled.
All it takes is finding delight in the small moments throughout the day.
“We should all be doing small things to enhance our monotonous lives [and] break up the days that flow into each other,” Balaji said. “Go embrace what you like and [act on] those ideas floating around in your head.”