More on noticing and reflecting
Recently I wrote about the importance of practicing our noticing and reflecting skills. A few weeks ago I read on MetaFilter about John Stilgoe “a professor at Harvard who teaches his students how to, among other things, mindfully observe the urban and suburban environments they inhabit.”
I bought his book Outside Lies Magic, and although the book itself is so-so, the introduction is passionately articulate about some of these same issues I’ve written about
It is a book about awareness in ordinary surroundings. It is a book about awareness that builds into mindfulness, into the enduring pleasures of noticing and thinking about what one notices.
I hope this book encourages each reader to widen his or her angle of vision, to step sideways and look at something seemingly familiar, to walk a few paces and see something utterly new.