I’m a People Watcher, and This is Why I Can’t Stop
I watch people all the time.
That sounds creepy.
It probably is.
My wife tells me to not stare so much.
But it’s how I learn about the world.
I’ve always been fascinated by human behavior.
Before it was my wife, it was my parents telling me the same thing: “Stop staring, Jordan.”
It’s part of who I am, I guess.
It’s difficult to explain it, but I’ll try.
I watch because I learn so much about humans this way
And, in the process, I learn about myself.
Take someone walking down the street. There is so much you can see in a walk. Is the person slouching? Do they appear full of life? Or are they deflated?
And what is the quality of their demeanor? Can you sense it? I think you can. You can see stories in a walk. If you look hard enough, you can imagine where that person on the street is coming from. I’m not talking just about location. I’m talking about the soul’s journey — from which direction does that emerge? What trials and tribulations has that body been through?
These are questions I ask myself when I watch other people go about their lives. There is something magical that happens when people go about their lives not trying to be a certain way for the passerby. We are all extras in each other’s movies, but the problem is that, like extras on the silver screen, we rarely pay attention to the people we will never, ever see again.
Wasn’t their role valuable, these extras? Without them, there would be no color, no backdrop of life. It would be a lonely walking through the void, a Cormac McCarthy scene.
Which is reality, in a way; it all fuses together.
The stories I co-create when I observe others end up in my own story in some way or another, whether I intend for it to happen or not, whether I’m aware of the ultimate impact or not.
Still, I watch. I look for clues.
How did that man do what he just did? Where did that woman buy her eccentric purple coat? And how does it make her feel to wear it? The answers are in the questions. Never go out and explore the world, and you likely won’t have access to as many questions. You would never experience their value.
Yesterday, I watched again and learned something important
I was walking down the sidewalk, a path littered with ice and cracks in frigid Montana. I first saw a small, white dog trotting through the snow, soon slowing to a saunter as it looked for a suitable tree to do its business.
Then I saw him, on older man hunched deeply over. He was moving after his dog at a snail’s pace. He had to be over 80 years old. He was moving very slowly, pushing a cart that carried an oxygen tank, his oxygen tank. I saw sadness. Or so I thought.
I felt for this man, so old and seemingly so frail. It seemed a long, hard walk.
Still, I wanted to say hello. I wanted to connect in a small way.
As we got closer, he looked up and gave the biggest smile. “Hello!”
“Hi,” I stammered, surprised by his abrupt greeting. But I couldn’t help replying with joy and returning his infectious smile.
For some reason, I thought I would be the one to speak first.
“Beautiful night! Really nice night!” The man gleefully belted the words out.
“Yes it is,” I responded. And then we were already past each other, just like that.
Why had I not expected such a positive response?
Why was he the one to boost my mood and not the other way around?
I learn by watching.
But I learn more when I experience something different than what I first saw.
