On Looking

1. Our Everyday Inattention: We miss the vast majority of what's happening around us.

You missed that. Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you.

Concentration's cost. The human brain is constantly bombarded with an "unthinkably large amount of information" from all senses. To function, we develop "ignorance," which we commend as "concentration." This focus, while useful for tasks like reading, leads us to overlook the rich details of our daily journeys—the hum of lights, ambient noises, physical sensations, and the world "making itself available to be observed."

Sleepwalking through life. The author realized her own profound inattention during walks with her dog, who experienced an "entirely different block." She had become a "sleepwalker on the sidewalk," seeing only what she expected to see. This book aims to "knock myself awake" by investigating this pervasive inattention, not for complex tasks, but for the most "quotidian" activities.

Human deficiency. This deficiency of attention is a common human trait. We "see, but we do not see," using our eyes but with a "glancing, frivolously considering" gaze. We have "blinders" that prevent us from noticing the obvious, even missing significant events like sixty dollars lying on the street, as one psychologist did during a walk.

2. The Child's Unfiltered Gaze: Infants perceive the world with an unbiased, detailed, and animistic view.

The infant has a mind untrammeled by experience: he has no expectations, so he is not closed off from experiencing something anew.

Aboriginal muchness. For infants, the world is an "aboriginal sensible muchness"—a chaotic, undifferentiated mass of sensations. Unlike adults who categorize and generalize, children attend to details we gloss over, like the repeating "Os" on signs or the "acute isosceles triangles" formed by balusters and sidewalks. This "neophilia," or love of the new, brightens their attention.

Synesthesia and animism. Infants may experience a "sensorium commune," a form of synesthesia where senses are joined, like experiencing a teddy bear as a "bang." This primordial perception allows them to attribute life to inanimate objects, an "animism" that adults often dismiss as cognitive immaturity. For example, the author's son saw a discarded shoe as "sad" and a standpipe as a "fellow creature."

Lost sensitivity. As we grow, we learn to ignore these connections, losing the "richness in the child's analogies." This process, where synapses are "snipped," leads to a diminished sensitivity to the world's details and a loss of compassion for seemingly inanimate objects. Children's built-in animistic tendency fosters a sensitivity that adults often cannot teach.

3. Geology as the City's Skeleton: The city is a living geological landscape, revealing eons of history.

Everything that we have got here has to be natural to begin with—so asphalt is one of those things.

City as geology. A geologist, Sidney Horenstein, revealed that the city is not just man-made objects but a "big giant rock outcropping." Every building is forged of stone or hewed from trees, making so-called artificial objects merely recombined natural materials. Even asphalt is a mix of petroleum residue and mineral aggregate—"pure" in its natural origins.

Petrified human activity. The city's stones tell stories of deep time and human interaction. Marble stairs are "irregularly concave, worn down by the footfalls of countless visitors," a visible record of "petrified human activity." Buildings, though seemingly permanent, are constantly "deteriorating under the persistent, patient forces of wind, water, and time," revealing the natural process of weathering.

Ancient life and travel. Horenstein's "friends"—the varied stones—are everywhere:

• Manhattan schist: Bedrock of the city, showing "glaciation" stripes from ancient ice.
• Indiana limestone: Full of "worm burrows," crinoids, and bryozoans—fossils from ancient sea floors.
• Brownstone (sandstone): Two hundred million years old.
• Bluestone: Reveals "feathers," marks where stone masons split it.
  This perspective transforms a city block into a "whirlwind tour through eons," a "mash-up history written by lunatics."

4. Letters as Living Forms: Typography and lettering are everywhere, each with a history and character.

To me, the TAXI sign says, well, “taxi.” To a typographer, it says disaster.

Linguistic bombardment. Our world is "linguistic," and cities barrage us with text on signs, storefronts, billboards, and even manhole covers. The author, initially seeing these as mere words, learned from typographer Paul Shaw to see "lettering"—letters "drawn, carved, cut, torn," or assembled—as distinct entities with their own aesthetics and histories.

The typographer's eye. Shaw, a "professional letterhead," sees "awfulness" in stretched typefaces, unnatural squeezing, arbitrary sizing, or unsuitable fonts. He can date buildings by their lettering, identifying Art Nouveau curves or Sans-serif Gothic from the late nineteenth century. He even found a "Q" with an "internal limb" on an "ordinary sign," an eccentricity that "animated an otherwise unremarkable sign."

Ghost signs and humanisticness. Shaw's "literaphilia" extends to "ghost signs"—faded, nearly disappeared advertisements that offer glimpses into the past. He describes letters with humanistic qualities: an "O" looking "uncomfortable," an "R" "long-legged," or an "S" "high-waisted." This perspective transforms mundane text into a rich tapestry of design choices, historical clues, and even emotional expression.

5. The City's Hidden Dimensions: Artists and social observers reveal the city's dynamic, multi-layered spaces.

Once you look at what seems ordinary long enough, though, it often turns odd and unfamiliar, as any child repeatedly saying his own name aloud learns.

The artist's gaze. Illustrator Maira Kalman, a "hoarder... of both experience and image," collects the ordinary, making us look at things we trip over but forget to see. She treats objects with "unprejudiced equivalence," much like a child. Her walks reveal the city's "fourth dimension" by veering off sidewalks and into unexpected places like halfway houses, churches, and senior centers.

Social engagement. Kalman's boldness in engaging strangers—mailmen, police, passersby—challenged the author's urban habit of maintaining privacy. She saw "personal space" not as a barrier but as an invitation to connect. This led to curious episodes, like learning about a halfway house from its "Please remove your hats" sign or observing bingo games in a senior center.

Beyond the surface. Kalman's approach highlights that the city is more than its visible skin. Buildings, though appearing residential, might house businesses or social services. Her "less intact box" brain, possibly due to fewer dopamine receptors in the thalamus, allows for "divergent thinking," seeing possibilities for interaction and meaning where others see only decoration or obstruction.

6. The Body's Silent Storyteller: Our gait and physical presentation reveal our life histories and health.

I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.

Sherlockian observation. Inspired by Dr. Joseph Bell, Sherlock Holmes's real-life model, the author sought Dr. Bennett Lorber, a physician who diagnoses by careful observation. Lorber teaches medical students to "see the patient" beyond their immediate symptoms, noting details like a bible on a nightstand or photographs, to understand the person behind the illness.

Gait as a tell. Walking, a "controlled falling," is a complex process that reveals much about our bodies. A "disorderly" gait can signal a host of internal issues:

• Limp: Indicates hip problems.
• Waddle: Suggests weakness in gluteal muscles (Trendelenburg sign).
• Hurried gait with tremors: Possible Parkinson's disease.
• Dragging toes or high knee lift: Peroneal nerve damage.
  Lorber could diagnose a man's need for a hip replacement or a woman's genetic disorder from a glance.

Beyond the visible. Physical therapist Evan Johnson further demonstrated how clothing and posture reveal underlying conditions. Uneven pant cuffs or shoe wear can indicate knee valgus or hip rotation. Even a "habitual stooped posture" with a "forward head" can be a coping mechanism for spinal stenosis. Our bodies, in their movement and presentation, are constantly telling stories, often without our conscious awareness.

7. The Invisible World of Sound: The city's soundscape is a complex symphony, often ignored but physically impactful.

If you were just listening to it for itself, it could be a soothing sound, I think: it’s a steady-state sound.

Beyond noise. Sound designer Scott Lehrer taught the author to listen to the city's "unwelcome clamor" not as mere noise, but as a symphony. He could transform a bus's "bubbling, roiling sound" into percussion by dropping its pitch. The distinction between "noise" and "sound" is subjective; what one person finds irritating, another might find soothing or informative.

Acoustic details. Lehrer's acute hearing revealed subtle sounds often missed:

• Tires on wet pavement: Different from rubber on dry asphalt.
• Schoolyard sounds: Squeaking sneakers, dribbled basketballs, amplified by "reverberant" brick walls.
• Room "wetness": The amount of reverberation, making a bathroom sound different from a living room.
  Sound engineers manipulate these elements to create realistic audio experiences, even compiling "bathroom presets."

Physical and psychological impact. Sounds are physical things; low frequencies can be "felt" as much as heard, like a subway's rumble. Loud noises, like a motorcycle's roar, can damage ear cilia and trigger a sympathetic nervous system response. Our brains also "fill in" missing sounds (auditory restoration) and filter conversations (cocktail party effect). The city's sounds, from a "minor second" turnstile ding to a car's "rubbing-squealing-yawning-pull" during parallel parking, are a unique, ever-changing sonic landscape.

8. The Olfactory Landscape: Dogs perceive the world through a rich, detailed tapestry of smells.

We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal’s inter-communications with his surroundings . . . and have only the word ‘smell,’ for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning, inciting, repelling . . . those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air.

Macrosomatic world. Humans are "microsomatic" (feeble-scented), while dogs are "macrosomatic" (keen-scented), with hundreds of millions more olfactory receptors. For dogs, the world is a "topography wrought of odors," a landscape "brightly colored with aromas." Smells are not just enticing or repugnant; they are pure information, revealing stories of other dogs' moods, health, and sexual readiness.

The dog's nose at work. The author's dog, Finnegan, demonstrated sophisticated olfactory behaviors:

• Stereo olfaction: Detecting differences in smell strength between nostrils to locate sources.
• Nostril lateralization: Using the right nostril for new/aversive scents (arousal) and the left for familiar/calming ones.
• Sneezing and nose-licking: Clearing the palate and moistening the nose for better absorption of odors.
  These actions allow dogs to "scan" an area, understanding that smells are not static but "a haze, a cloud, spreading out from their source."

Invisible human traces. Just as dogs detect individual odors and direction from footsteps, humans leave "tracks" of their presence. The author realized that a "fog of warm air" from a parked car or "disruption of fallen petals" tells a story of recent passage. While humans might notice a lost glove, a dog can infer the "mood, opinions, disease" of the dog that left a urine mark, or even know where a recently returned person lives.

9. Urban Wildlife's Secret Lives: Cities teem with animals adapting to human presence, leaving subtle "signs."

As plentiful as the pigeons, the sparrows, the chipmunks, or the squirrels may seem to be on city streets, what you see outside by day is a fraction of what you would see along the same route at night.

Nocturnal city. John Hadidian, a wildlife scientist, revealed that the city transforms at night, teeming with animals that avoid humans. Our predictable "pulses of traffic" and retreat indoors create opportunities for nocturnal species. Animals like raccoons, rats, bats, and even coyotes adapt to urban life by becoming crepuscular or nocturnal.

Urban adapters. Raccoons, "North American primates," are classic urban adapters:

• Generalists: Live anywhere, eat anything (except raw onion).
• Intelligent: Dexterous hands, playfulness, "knavery."
• Social: Live in groups, use diverse den sites (sewers, basements, tree holes).
  Rats are "opportunistic omnivores," thriving on human trash and exhibiting "thigmotaxic" (wall-hugging) behavior, using whiskers to navigate tight spaces.

Signs of life. Even when animals are unseen, their presence is revealed through "signs":

• Squirrel dreys: Messy leaf nests in trees.
• Rodent barriers: Makeshift wire mesh or spikes intended to deter, but often highlighting animal routes.
• Insecure trash cans: Guaranteed to be visited by raccoons.
• Rodent boxes: Unlikely maps of rat superhighways.
• Pigeon loafing: Often found on "unfriendly spikes" or plastic owl deterrents, which become convenient perches.
  Hadidian's "urban cliff hypothesis" suggests that many urban animals evolved from ancient cliff-dwellers, finding similar habitats in city buildings.

10. The Power of Shifting Perspective: By adopting different "lenses," we can rediscover wonder in the ordinary.

The only true voyage . . . would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is.

Overcoming inattentional blindness. The author's journey with experts—a child, geologist, typographer, artist, physical therapist, blind person, sound engineer, and dog—demonstrated that her initial "missing pretty much everything" was a human deficiency, not a lack of things to see. Each expert provided a unique "search image" or "lens" to overcome "inattentional blindness."

Refined perception. By consciously adopting these different perspectives, the author's perception was "unrecognizably richer." She learned to:

• See geology: Ancient fossils in limestone, glaciation marks on schist.
• Read lettering: The "awfulness" or "humanisticness" of signs.
• Observe social dynamics: The "pedestrian jig" and "platoons" of walkers.
• Diagnose gait: The subtle tells of health and history in a person's walk.
• Hear the unseen: The "wetness" of a room's acoustics, the physical impact of low-frequency sounds.
• Smell the invisible: The rich information in a dog's olfactory world.

A sense of wonder. The book concludes that the "unbelievable strata of trifling, tremendous things to observe are there for the observing." The key is not the expertise itself, but the "simple interest in attending." By tuning our senses and brains, we can transform walking from mere physical transit into "mental transportation," rediscovering a "sense of wonder" that we all possess but often forget to enjoy.

Last updated: December 28, 2025