Why We All Need to Look Up….

Living and working in a city like Prague has its benefits and one of them is simply seeing the sights on a daily basis. I work just off the main square in Prague 1 and I commute from the Beautiful Hanspaulkou area of Prague 6. My journey is partly by bus, partly by Metro and partly on foot. It is the latter bit I like best as I can observe the architecture and trip over the tourists! You just have to remind yourself to keep looking up or else you miss it all.

p

What do I mean by ‘look up’?

Well, most of us walk along staring at the floor probably thinking, worrying or planning our day. We are self-absorbed and living in our own minds walking as if on auto pilot. We forget to look up and take in the sights…. And as a result, we miss so, so much. I am terrible for this and have been known to ask where I can buy say fresh bread, only to be shown that I passed a bakery store every day for five years and never actually saw it!

I reckon this is a bit like life. We live in some inner revelry of thoughts, worries, plans etc. and forget to look up and take in the sights. Before we know it, our children have grown, our hair has grayed, and we wonder where time went. But, we did this to ourselves because we forgot to look up and live in the moment. We forgot to observe.

They say observation creates reality but we actually have to observe it to create. Stuck in our own heads all of the time isn’t observing. Take a look around, watch, listen and observe. Truly observe. Make a habit of spending a few minutes with your head up observing and contemplating. It will make a difference.

Most of the time, we do not create reality at all because we are controlled and we behave in predictable ways. No, I am not a conspiracy theorist but I am saying that we become part of the mob mentality, we stop thinking for ourselves, we stop accepting responsibility – we stop thinking. It is easy to do after all we are bombarded daily with reasons to fear and reasons to conform. To truly co-create reality, we have to consciously observe and take action. We need to be in control. We need to look up and stay looking up.

jhp5162b5e513ed6

As my lead character, Stanley, says in my forthcoming novel; The Last Observer “So, you are saying that the vast majority of people don’t really create reality but simply sustain it through their emotional reactions to it then?”

Yep – Stanley. That is what I am saying.

Leave a Reply