Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

 

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Its slightly unacceptable to stare straight at people on the tube even though the carriages are designed so that you are positioned directly opposite each other. Everyone tends to flit their eyes around, taking in as much as they can without imposing their eyeballs too much on anyone. To be honest it is actually easier to look at people now as so many are glued to their phones but before this technological diversion I invented a game to pass the time on tube journeys which is to take a detail of someone and try to build a picture of who they are without actually looking directly into their face. You need to gather as much information as you can before finally glancing up to see how closely they match to what you imagined them to look like. Its a bit like being Sherlock only you probably won’t be quite as implausibly accurate.

We make snap decisions every moment of every day about people based on their appearance. We feel we can gain a degree of insight from our observations that will reveal the story within and are often convinced what we see is true and correct but we must always remember  our conclusions will always be tainted by our own projections. If you are prepared to accept that you are not objective in any way whatsoever you might find your judgements often reveal as much about you and how you view people as the target in your sights. What nugget of self-knowledge did I gain by staring at people’s tattooed feet and hands on the tube? Hmm, guess that’s for me to work out. I’ll let you  make your own conclusions but be warned, they might shine a light inwards as well as outwards…

Next time you are bored on a tube or a train and have text neck from playing angry flappy crush why not play the Observation Game and see how you get on…your brain is doing it anyway, you might as well get on board. You can always go back to flicking if you don’t enjoy it.

 

 

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Our brains are aware of everything that is going on around us but only alert us to things that are different or are important. For example, your brain will flag up that the guy who always stands outside your local shop isn’t wearing his usual furry hat or the fact that there is a car heading straight for you. The rest is zoned out by your attentional filter so anything that gets through must somehow registers in either category, change or importance. (i learnt this in a fascinating book I read on neuroscience by daniel J levetin  called “The organised mind” in case you are interested in my sources)

So when you actually notice someone out of the corner of your eye as you are bombing around the street there is undoubtedly a very good reason for it. You can’t put your finger on it but you just feel something isn’t quite right. All the subjects in this week’s posts broke through my attentional filter and registered on my weirdometer (that isn’t from my brain book btw – I made that up, fyi). The guy above for example stood still for so long that I thought he was some sort of art installation or a living statue, even the other woman in the photo was eyeballing him with intense curiosity. I actually watched him till he eventually moved which was kind of a relief as he was beginning to freak me out big time. Even Paddington bear looked weirded out.

So next time you notice someone and something doesn’t feel right about them, trust your observation. Although please bear in mind your brain tends to notice things that are important to you, highlighting things that will re-enforce your existing world view whilst dismissing everything else. We must appreciate that we aren’t getting the full story, the bigger picture. We are only being made aware of a minuscule fraction of reality. In many ways the brain sees what we want to see. Our vision feels objective but it is really anything but.

Its a bit like the internet these days. It is, without our consent, forever fine tuning what it thinks we want to look at and filtering out the rest. The brain works in exactly the same way. Its annoying in some ways as we are really only getting a very fine slice of the world around us which is then re-inforced perpetually. Although not half as annoying as getting endless pop up adverts trying to sell you something you have already bought. I would so love a button on my keyboard which sent an instant message to all prospective online sellers: “You’re late, I already bought it, stop trying to sell me something I already own and leave me be!

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

 

 

 

 

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

This week I have featured a relatively new phenomena in London (or at least one I have just started noticing a lot) which is queuing for food. Not in a Communist Russia kind of way, there aren’t any shortages, just people who are happy to queue (even in the rain as demonstrated above) to eat at their chosen eatery.

Apparently there are around 20,000 restaurants in central london so its not like you couldn’t go somewhere else. In Soho, where most of the photographs were taken, you are never more than a stone’s throw away from half a dozen decent food joints but still people will queue endlessly to get a taste of the delicacies the reviewers have been banging on about. Soho as an area has been transformed in the last few years from a late night party area of bars and clubs into an area full of cafes and restaurants. Back in the day you only ever used to see queues for clubs and now the great british tradition of waiting in line has been adopted by the clientele of their successors. It would seem that people would definitely rather go out eating than dancing these days.

You only have to look at the Time Out listings to see the change. The club section used to be four or five pages long and now you barely get a half page of listings as oppose to the ‘eating out’ section which now seem to dominate the publication.

It feels like everyone has become a foodie in this city. Personally I couldn’t really give a shit. My general policy is to eat then meet as oppose to most people who want to meet then eat meat. Its not like I don’t like food. I just don’t need every meal to be a culinary masterpiece. Food is fuel. We need it to survive. My tastebuds don’t need fireworks every time I throw something down my gob.

I think mainly its do with the fact that I find food socialising a little bit sedate and a bit too sedentary. Its also very expensive in this city and you can’t help feeling in most places when you get the bill and cough up an inordinate amount of cash that someone has dragged you into a nearby alley and mugged you for all you’ve got. So getting fleeced for a ton when I don’t really care and would much rather spend my money on other consumables leaves me trying to avoid all food based meet ups. This is quite restrictive on socialising these days and fairly difficult to refuse invitations without upsetting the inviter.

If you tell people these days you’re not fussed about food you see their face flatten in disbelief and vague contempt. It feels like a new religion and its sacrilegious to be indifferent about it. Guess that makes me a heretic and I’m heading for hell..bon appetit!

 

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

I had some family come to stay from out of town and took them on a bit of a tourist tour round London and we ended up in this indoor antique market on Portobello Rd. It is a road I have been up almost everyday of my life for at least a decade and I had never been inside this place once.

It was a microcosmic world all of its own and it was evident all the stall holders had been there a long time. They had a jaded feel about them. Years of dealing with tourists, trapped indoors with no natural light, way too much time to ponder their own existence, all of this appeared to have contributed to a sense of vague joylessness. There was an overriding feeling emanating from everyone that life had passed them by and some deep rooted resentment had set in.

Routine repetition and familiarity will eventually suck the lifeblood out of you. New experiences are vital if you want to keep your brain stimulated. It is a muscle and if you don’t exercise it, it will atrophy.

This place was not on my radar so I never bothered looking in but exploration into unknown, unfamiliar territories is what will stop the rot setting in. In stepping off my beaten path I uncovered a treasure trove of characters who ironically personified what happens when you allow your world to shrink and wither to a degree which cannot fail to stifle and suppress.

If you can walk through a street you never have, do it. If you can order something other than your usual do it. If you can speak to a stranger do it. If you can find a new place to hang out, an activity you’ve never tried, see a band you’ve never heard of, do it, do it, do it. Everything we like, know and are comfortable with will always be there for us. We can go back to them anytime but if we never venture beyond our ‘likes’ we will become trapped in a finite personality, a fixed moment in time. We must stay open. The hunt for knowledge and experience should never stop as long as we are here.

I will leave you with this quote, who said it, I have no idea:

“The only way to strengthen one’s intellect is to make up ones mind about nothing – to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.”

(p.s i forgot to send this out earlier – its a tad late, but its a bank holiday so I guess that’s ok…happy long weekend people!