60 Weeks to 60 — Week 2: Are You Paying Attention?
As children, we’re naturally curious and intensely observant as we try to figure out how the world works. As we get older, most of us dampen our curiosity and dim our powers of perception. We become skilled at predicting what we’ll experience and, therefore, experience the things we predict.
It takes considerable effort to focus our attention beyond what we anticipate, especially when we’re dealing with familiar experiences. For example, we literally tune out when we’re performing repetitive activities, such as driving or walking on routine paths. We also focus predominantly on things that are at eye level rather than looking around more broadly. And, we pay attention to objects that we expect to find and ignore those things that don’t fit.
Recently, while waiting in line at Bianchini’s, our local grocery store, I happened to glance up toward the ceiling. I’ve been in that store thousands of times and was astonished to realize that there is an entire farm scene, with huge wooden cows, chickens, and real bales of hay, displayed on a high ledge that goes around the entire store. I mentioned this to the man working at the checkout counter and asked if this display was new. He laughed and said that all the cows and chickens have been there since the store opened years ago. I had fallen into all three of those traps!
Scientists and artists of all types are the world’s “noticers.” They are trained to pay attention and to communicate what they see and experience to the rest of us. For example, Charles Darwin is credited with the idea of evolution by natural selection. He polished his ability to pay attention during his five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836, and upon his return to England as he studied all the specimens and drawings he brought back from the Galápagos Islands. Tiny differences in the beaks of finches and the shapes of tortoise shells served as evidence for his provocative theories. This is a poignant reminder of the power of observation.
This coming week, my challenge is to polish my powers of observation by actively looking at the world with fresh eyes. I will take photos of surprising things around me and post them below. My plan is to look at my environment from very different perspectives in order to see old things in new ways… If you choose to participate in this challenge, please feel free to post your photos, too!
Next week’s challenge is to consider the trade off between energy and focus as we age.
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- Here is a photo of a bowl of lemons… I decided to play around with it to see it differently:
2. Here is a collage of a flowers… The process of taking these pictures and arranging them forced me to slow down enough to look at them with much more attention than I normally would.
3. Today I took three recent New Yorker magazines from the huge pile on my bedside table, pulled off the covers, cut them up, and created this… It gave me the opportunity to look at the covers from a new perspective:
4. I’m finding that I really enjoy doing collages since I don’t have to start with a blank canvas, but get to look at old things in new ways. Here is a collage I created from a series of photos I took of my shadow walking across the Stanford campus:
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- A portion of this blog post is an edited excerpt from my book, inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity.
- Here is the first blog post for the 60 Weeks to 60 Project
