Oct 15 2009
Keep looking up
I was biking home the other night when I noticed the Russell Hotel. Not a particularly staggering building, but quite grand and enough to make me think, “It’s pretty eye-catching, why have I not noticed it before?”.
As a birdwatcher, the mantra was always “keep looking up” – mainly thanks to Bill Oddie’s books – because you miss lots of activity if you don’t keep an eye on what’s flying over. With fishing, “keep looking up” means you see where fish are moving nearby, you can respond to other factors that you don’t see if you become fixated with watching your float. And you get to watch the short-eared owl quartering the far field, or the barn owl hunting along the hedge on the far bank.
Seeing the hotel made me realise that I need to make space to “keep looking up” in all areas of my life. I need to see more of my journey than just my front wheel, more of the company I work for than just my screen and desk-neighbours, and more of the community I live in than just the pavement between home and the station.