People are Weird

Now we’re really getting somewhere. Where? Doesn’t matter. Head down, wings pinned back, soaring, spiralling, rocketing to the end of the year with a momentum that won’t stop for anybody. Don’t look sideways. Don’t stop. Don’t pause to notice the weeks tearing past you like scenery out the window of a fast-moving train. Huge backdrops whirring past. Other people, tiny like children’s toys, going about their business, soundlessly, through glass, and time. 

Or… despite the momentum, do exactly that. Ever so briefly, stop, shift focus, notice things that are not yourself.

Have a look. This is a Public Service Announcement.

Look at people’s hands. Smooth, worn, maps of pigment and texture, dextrous agents of the mind. See if you can spot someone with biro scrawl in their own handwriting - “Michael”, or “shirt” or “Monica by Friday”. These are hints. Character notes. Often, when you love someone, its their hands that come to you easily and which you love with a poignant pang, symbolising the them-ness of them. So look at people’s hands.

Look at the sky.

Look in a library. Look at the books on that little dinner-cart-looking-thing that gets tugged around and is full of books that have just been returned. Look at all the things people have just learned. Who are these people? Who was it who just read “Chess for Beginners”? Who borrowed “Instant Mom” or “Life and Death in the Third Reich”? Imagine the things they know that they didn’t know before. Imagine the things you don’t know. And know this: the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. This is why academics are always say things on radio like “I couldn’t possibly comment on the yellow-bellied sea snake because my area of expertise is the red-bellied black snake” even though we all know that this person probably knows more about yellow-bellied sea snakes than every other human on earth apart from the expert in yellow-bellied sea snakes. Anyway the point is by all means pick up a book.

Look at the stunning symmetry of a leaf.

Look at eggs. I mean really. How completely ridiculous and amazing are eggs. 

Look at how unselfconsciously children move through the world. The sprawl of them across a parent in a restaurant reading a menu. The constant restless motion - a sudden flip upside-down to meet some innate gravitational curiosity. The way they stand to watch a busker. 

Look at people dancing in sync. Google it. Group dancing, Fred and Ginger, whatever. There’s something metronomic about watching it. Something soothing. Something that appeals to the same thing in humans that makes us tidy our houses and buy Home magazine and watch sports and like it when armies march in straight lines. It feels like order and exuberant creativity are happening at the same time. By the way I did just search “dancing in sync” and found several articles reporting that dancing in sync helps you connect to others and gives you a higher pain threshold. People are weird. 

Look at a park. Parks are great. Extra points if you take your shoes off.

Look at a frisbee while you’re there. Or a ball. The science and poetry of it. The way an object behaves in the atmosphere when propelled by the force of a lazy picnicker holding a beer in the other hand. The way it sits on the breeze, or cuts through it. When you watch it, notice whether your mind gives it a sound to match the motion.

Look at the well worn bits of space. Look how people flock. People are weird.

Look at the signs. We make signs for each other! How adorable! Keep left. Deliveries after noon. Parking meter broken. Dave if you get this I have your phone.

Look at how strangers talk to each other. 

Look at how many buttons you can see right now. Chances are more than one. Buttons are everywhere. Nobody talks about how many buttons there are in the world. The world is positively groaning with them. Why do we not give thanks more often to buttons?

Look at someone leaving a hairdresser. A strut? A glance in a reflection? A studied nonchalance? People are weird.

Look at the people helping the other people. There will be one, somewhere, if you look hard enough. 

Look at the way holding a mug of tea or coffee makes a person seem more relaxed, like carrying a mug brings you closer to the dressing-gown-wearing version of you. 

Look around. Just for a moment or two. This has been a Public Service Announcement.

An edited version of this column first appeared in The Big Issue. You should buy The Big Issue because it is one of the Good Things in life and it will make a big difference to another human.