There are different kinds of noticing. My favorite is worth sharing, I hope, because it is useful and smart and also really cool.
Aid workers were sent to a West African Village where childhood malnutrition was a recognized problem. Rather than buying formula from Nestle, they began their work by looking carefully. As it turned out, meals were generally served communally. Women began by creating nutrient-rich, one-pot stews, and family members typically lined up with bowls in hand, men first, then working women and teens, then the elderly, then children. With a deep dip into the communal pot, those first in line were served hearty portions of beans, vegetables and meat, but by the time the babies were fed, all that was left in the pot was froth, the foam that had bubbled to the top of the stew. A happy answer developed: stir the pot before each person was served.
Most of us enlist some version of this kind of noticing in our lives. We anticipate slippery sidewalks and wear special boots; or we think about who we will meet at an event and prepare for worrying exchanges; or we notice which of our comments seem to trigger a response with a friend. Noticing can be thought of as a practice that we get better at it, like writing or sketching, as we do it and revise.
My new insight is that noticing can be more than future-oriented. Retrospective noticing offers those of us who have lived a long time a real leg up in the noticing department. For instance, comparison becomes a key attribute of the aging noticer. Those of us who have had lots of experiences have a measuring stick that can be used for comparison. We compare historical moments—I’m especially thinking a lot these days about Anita Hill, for example, as I watch the E. Jean Carroll’s story unfold. We can compare back stories, consider the effects of wealth or personal confidence, purpose or culture as we listen to people’s opinions. Attending to similarities and differences between a first or second or third encounter with a book or movie tells us something both about ourselves and the time we live in
And yet I am surprised that an entirely new kind of noticing has opened to me recently. A kaleidoscope of problems now present themselves that they are not mine to solve. I realize, with some degree of shock, that they are too complicated and out of my lifetime zone. Take artificial intelligence: It IS coming, and it will change the world, but it is not my job to either welcome or head it off. I am no longer the fix-it girl. My role at this point is to bear witness to what came before so that those charged with thinking about what could be will have references and comparisons. From this perspective, even exhausting problems become interesting.
Sometimes all of these different sorts of noticings overlap like color paddles that together form a new hue. Yesterday, for instance, while actively noticing my grandson’s fascination with repetitive computer games, I began thinking about what I could do to disrupt his “addiction.” At the same time, I remembered and began thinking about my father playing pinball at a local lunch joint. How alike or different is pinball from the repetititve computer games the kid is playing? Then I sat a bit with the fact that this 8-year-old would live in a world where computers would have a different status and meaning than anything I could possibly foresee.
As I notice my own grown children interact as adults, laughing together with their partners, my way of noticing changes. I attend with pleasure to their interactions. No comment, no interference — I float. What a strange new way to notice and at times to be glad.
A Paean to Noticing
Wonderful wisdom here. Thank you! And always stirring the pot seems like a very good all-purpose rule to carry around--applicable to any situation.
So true and real. Wendy Saul has a special introspective perspective on the world - as she always did. Thank you for this thought-provoking piece - from the insight out. Would love more of her voice.
J Lukin