It's about looking at stuff.

       This is open ended. I haven’t come to any sort of conclusion yet, but I think sometimes we just need to mull over things for the sake of all good musings. This weekend I went on trips. I went on a far trip to Paris and a near trip to the London Zoo and both trips set me to pondering about the way we look at things. I don’t mean the metaphorical way that we view and interpret the world around us and all that jazz – no I’m talking about literally walking up to something and just staring at it.

         We just stare at things. I went to Paris and stared at the Eiffel Tower, at my pink macaron, at the Parisians, the sun-kissed buildings, the bridges we passed on our boat tour, the weathered spines of well-loved books, my onion soup and the flowering trees. I would have spent hours upon hours staring at paintings on a wall in the art galleries if we had time. Then on Saturday we went to the zoo and my staring habit took over again. This time I found myself staring at strange eyeballs and funny nostrils, at penguin wings, lily pads, snuggling otters, feisty zebras, and parrot feathers. The animals stay in their enclosures while I pay £20 to wander through a park and stare at them.

          I started to wonder how much money or time we spend to effectively stare at things regardless of whether or not we’ve seen them before. And why? I stinking love the zoo and I could sit and watch penguins play for the rest of my life and be content, but the more I think about it the stranger the whole convention seems. Do we stare at things to know more? To learn? We could just as easily buy a book and flip through pictures, but instead we traipse all over the world to be in the presence of fascinating sights. I don’t think it has anything to do with grandeur because the Eiffel Tower is huge and famous but I enjoy the butterfly paradise at the zoo just as much. So for now I’m just going to chock it up to good old fashioned wonder. We like to be startled; to see something brand new or perfectly familiar and have a different reaction every time. So we’ll keep buying tickets and planning road trips and drying out our contacts all in an effort to stare at more things and remember how fun it is to be surprised.



What do you think?