Noticing

Nurturing curiosity

Photo by Holly Landkammer on Unsplash

When we’re busy, we rarely notice changes in the little things we already know. We’ve labelled them, categorised them, and positioned them. We’re geared to notice new things we can put into our bag and take away to work on and monetise. That’s how business works.

We exacerbate the situation by employing processes and algorithms that freeze what we think we’re familiar with in some form of organisational aspic or like butterflies pinned to a card.

They’ve been trying to tell us something, but we don’t have time or just think we know. Dunning Kruger is alive and well.

Yet, everything we think we know changes all the time, in tiny ways, until one morning, we no longer recognise them, or they’re just not there.

The artisan notices; the half smile, the new shoes, the developing patina, the change in raw materials, the level of laughter in the office, and all the other little things that data doesn’t record.

When we meander and avoid easy, we’re more open to noticing, even when what we notice is inconvenient and disruptive. We know something’s there. That’s our advantage.

It’s what John Boyd termed fingerspiztengefuehle; “finger-tip feeling”, an exquisite awareness of what is happening around us.

It matters.

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Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…

Antigonish by Hughes Mearns