Learning to read is not a merely educational process; it involves plastic alterations to human neurophysiology, especially when the learning occurs at a young age, as is standard in the education systems with which most literate societies are currently equipped. In this, it is an example of a technology which physically and functionally alters how our brains function, and it should therefore be no surprise that other technologies likewise can impact our brains as well as our behaviors. It is similarly well documented that our memories are less than our ancestors’ because we exercise and rely upon them less. Taking these facts to the next level of abstraction, technology inevitably affects out interactions with the world, and therefore the art we create as the realizations and understandings we achieve about that world with which we interact.
Consider the ubiquity of highly capable cameras. Such cameras have obvious impacts on photographic skill and composition therefore, and many of us comment on people living through their camera lenses and smartphone screens instead of observing events with their eyes directly, but there is a less obvious impact on how we observe the world at scale. In particular, we have neglected the application of in-depth, detailed observation.
As an engineer, I like to think I have strong attention to detail – it’s considered a core engineering trait – and it’s true for some types of detail and in some situations. Protracted observation as a form of study, though, is still something I must remind myself to practice and implement, especially when it comes to matters or subjects I assume I will be able to record and revisit as needed. Being able to reference a thing is not the same as knowing it, in visual media as much as abstract concepts and material facts. Knowing I can look at a picture of a tree is not the same as observing a tree in depth to understand how the light and shows play across the crags of the bark, how the leaves respond to the wind, how squirrels, birds, and insects interact with it.
Da Vinci famously performed in-depth studies of particular scenes and features: how light, shadow, and reflectance work on the ripples of water or the folds of fabric; how to capture the translucence and motion of the human eye; the mechanics of machinery and anatomy. These studies and observations are often credited with enabling his engineering sketches, scientific insights, and his immortally compelling paintings and other works of art. He is far from the only master in various fields (and especially polymaths) whose insights and results can be linked to the practice of deliberate, dedicated, and careful observation. Nor should these practices be considered the exclusive province of unapproachable maestros. Yeoman farmers of the so-called dark ages exhibited an understanding of seasonality, botany, horticulture, and astronomy far beyond what most educated people living in the so-called information age can boast, and they achieved such knowledge not from books or scholars lecturing them but simply from observation and experience of their environment.
When I was young, I could sit with a task and focus upon it to the exclusion of all else, especially sitting with a book. I could read and not notice people running and shouting around me or someone calling my name. This was generally viewed as a problem more than an ability to cultivate, and my focus is not what it used to be today. In the right circumstances, for the right project, I can get close to the level of focus and concentration my former self could muster, but it is rarer and less intense. Some of that is how I trained myself, and some is surely how modern technology works on me. That technology is for all of us (mostly) a choice, but it does have an effect, one I’ve noticed more in the last year or so. I do not believe it a stretch to assert that most of us find it more difficult than it once was to practice patience, focus, and dedicated, deliberate observation like this post contemplates.
There is merit in merely lingering, but more than a commitment of time, what this requires is a commitment of attention and focus. It is both something which requires practice and which is required for practice (of any skill, really, in any field which requires understanding, from music to writing to multivariable calculus). We gain much with the ability to record information, from the instantaneous scene capture of omnipresent smartphone cameras to the collection and archiving of data. The advantages make it difficult to see what is lost, and this post is no paean to mythical halcyon days when we all had nothing better to do than stare at a tree for a few days. Rather, it is a reminder, as so many posts of this ilk are, that there is wisdom and merit to be found in both the flicker of a camera and the deliberate, dedicated lingering of an intentional gaze. We could all probably use a reminder to more often implement the latter.
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