I don’t close myself off to the world as I write in public. My senses are actually heightened by the conversations that are happening around me. I try to focus on these interactions to see if there are any takeaways to be had; as I wait for the guy at the gate to crack the mic to remind me, again, that my flight has been pushed back for some reason.
There’s a lady talking about her trip to Seattle last month, a guy reading his wife’s Cosmo magazine, a group of young boys on a baseball team that look like a rowdy bunch, a girl dressed a little too sexy for air travel and a woman with her laptop open-looking at spreadsheets at 3pm on a Friday going into a 3 day holiday weekend. Seriously?
Then there’s this guy, banging on the screen of his iPad, writing his next book.
Before this blog starts to read like a Tracy Chapman song, where I write about all the things I see and throw a hook in about a fast car, I guess I should start to narrow in on the focus of this chapter.
Let the world around you influence you.
Not in a way where you blame all of your issues or problems on the world and use your influences as excuses, but more in a way to educate or possibly expose yourself to something that you normally would have ignored or missed because your face was buried in your Facebook page.
The people, the places, the overall atmosphere and the wrongful listening in on of other people’s conversations. If it wasn’t for my curiosity, I probably wouldn’t have written many of my previous offerings. If it wasn’t for the lessons, the insight or the inspiration spawned from people watching, I wouldn't have been able to challenge my brain to spin creative thoughts and ideas out of these little moments. If anything, in the past few years, I have become more sensitive to the world around me. Not like Brendan Fraser's character in the movie Bedazzled (have you seen this movie?), where he cries about every little sensitive life moment, but more of an awareness of my surroundings and a deeper appreciation for what is really happening all around me.
These events don't just create writing opportunities; they also provide little glimpses and takeaways of moments where I would have traditionally just blocked out the noise and excitement around me. I don’t have a fear of missing out, but rather a healthy curiosity of what the world is providing me at that very moment. By taking it all in, or at least as much as your attention span allows, you feed your brain and possibly open new doors of opportunity, thought and enlightenment.
Learning to communicate with others takes an awful lot of closed-mouth research and open observation. Not to break off too much “new age” or “hippie speak” on you, but you’d be amazed what you can accomplish by getting yourself in tune with the world around you. And no, I don’t do yoga….
Look up and listen. Things are happening.
Pick up Pull The Trigger here:
