Cult of Observation

 

On Douglas Adams, James Burke, and the People Who Taught Me to Notice.

This essay started the way so many of mine do. With an observation that leads to one of my patented wandering conversations.

This particular observation was about a robin. Yes, the little bird with the red stomach. I was sitting on my front porch with a cup of coffee and a friend. I saw a robin on the neighbor's front lawn looking over toward my lawn. This, in and of itself, is not out of the ordinary as I have between four and six feeders out at any given time and more than one would appeal to a robin.

However.

This robin did something completely normal for robins, but that I had simply never noticed before. It ran like a bat out of hell from where it was to below my feeders where it stopped and pecked at the ground.
I commented "That's amazing speed for a bird on the ground, especially one that could still fly." I added that, when running, the robin looked more like a dinosaur than almost anything I had seen. To be fair, I had just watched a couple of documentaries on birds being the last living descendants of dinosaurs, so it was in my mind.

This brought up a conversation about roadrunners. How fast are they? Can they fly still? Why do they run when they can fly, etc. For the nerds out there, robins can sprint 8-12mph which, you know, is moving, but the roadrunner kicks its tail feathers at 20-26mph and it can still fly. I have to say, while this is incredibly off-topic, I would give anything to actually see a roadrunner come tearing by at 25mph. It has to be an amazing sight.

That conversation turned to actual flightless birds and why a bird would, on purpose, give up the ability to fly. This brought us around to the kakapo parrot which has been described as having forgotten that it's forgotten how to fly and has been known to jump out of trees and then fly somewhat like a brick. (Douglas Adams: Last Chance to See)

This then led to a long conversation about the book Last Chance to See and the various endangered animals that Douglas Adams went to see and write about. And how some have started to come back and unfortunately some have not.

This of course then turned into a conversation about Douglas himself, and this is where the essay actually started to take shape in my head. Douglas Adams was a very talented writer. I personally love everything he has ever written: Books, articles, essays, etc. But that's not the story here because it was never about his writing. It was about how Douglas looked at... How he entered the world.

Douglas Adams was a great observer who happened to write.

One of Douglas's observations has stayed with me forever, like luggage. Evolution ordinarily responds to a colder climate by producing thicker fur over countless generations. Humans took a rather more direct approach. They looked at an animal with a thick coat and said, "Right, I'll have yours." It's a quintessentially Douglassy observation. Funny at first, but underneath the joke is a profound truth about the way our species adapts to the world.

Stephen Fry, in his introduction to The Salmon of Doubt, writes of "Douglassy moments." I've never found a better adjective. To me, it describes not Douglas's writing, but his way of seeing the world. Fry also wrote, almost in passing, "This book shows what a teacher he was." I smiled when I read that because it put into one sentence something I had spent years gradually realizing for myself.

This is why, I believe, no one has stepped up to take Douglas's place. They try to imitate his writing style, his jokes, his Wodehousian similes and metaphors, and fail (just ask Eoin Colfer). But as I said, it isn't about that. It's the way he could look at the world, turn it ninety degrees, and then point it out to you, often with humor, but also occasionally, with philosophical directness. Once you had read it, you could only think, "Yes. Of course."

But this essay isn't about what a great observer Douglas Adams was. Well, I mean. Okay. It is, but it's also about P.G. Wodehouse, James Burke, Carl Sagan, and Richard Feynman.

It's about the cult of observation, the fellowship of people who opened new ways of looking and understanding. It's about the people who could teach you to look at the world and really see it. To see the absurdity of a flightless parrot who only mates once every few years when a tree is in fruit. To see how people are already interesting enough if you just look. To see how a monk in medieval times deciding to make glass better eventually led to the microchip. To see how the entire universe is connected in every way to everything that exists.

This is the gift that Douglas Adams, and then the others with the same gift, gave me. Not the books, or shows. But a way of looking at the world, a way of seeing interactions and connections. A way of entering the world.

Douglas Adams sees technology as if it were evolutionary biology. Human inventions aren't merely gadgets; they're our species' way of adapting without waiting for genes to do the work.

P. G. Wodehouse sees social embarrassment as if it were a branch of physics. People don't simply become awkward; they collide, ricochet, accelerate, and create chain reactions with the inevitability of Newton's laws.

James Burke sees history as if it were an electrical circuit. Every invention closes another switch, sending consequences racing forward through centuries until a medieval discovery unexpectedly becomes a modern computer.

Carl Sagan sees astronomy as if it were a deeply personal human story. The birth and death of stars aren't distant scientific events; they're the history of the atoms in our own bodies.

Richard Feynman sees physics as if it were mischievous play. The universe is not a solemn machine to be admired from a distance; it is a puzzle box to be poked, tested, teased, and delighted in until it gives up one of its secrets.

None of them merely describe their subjects. They reveal a hidden structure that, once pointed out, becomes impossible to unsee.

At this point, the conversation naturally turned to these once-in-a-generation minds, these collectors of astonishment.
Each of them gave the world, and me personally, a broader mind. A better way of seeing, if you only took the time to look. But this then inevitably led to the next question, and the crux of the essay. Where is this generation's P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, James Burke, Carl Sagan, or Richard Feynman?

But if every generation had theirs, why isn't there one out there now?

Does today's culture punish the curious observer? Does the reward of immediacy, fast media, likes, views, and instant gratification (not being fast enough) make the kind of lingering observation that is required (and the time that true craftsmanship takes) impossible? Or if not impossible, then unrewarded and lost in the rush of hype and viral cat videos?

I read my first Douglas Adams book when I was twelve. I didn't know it then, I mean, I was twelve, but buried in the humor, sci-fi, and hatred of digital watches, was a particular way of looking at the world, a way of looking at (if you will allow me) Life, The Universe, and Everything. The more I read of his unique way of observing and being astonished by the uniqueness of the mundane right in front of you the more I wanted.

My progression was, in hindsight, natural. It was a path of discovery that Burke could have made an entire show about. I went from Douglas Adams to Wodehouse, from Wodehouse to Sagan, from Sagan to Burke, and from Burke to Feynman. Each of whom opened a new way of looking, of observing. A new way of being astonished by the everyday.

Perhaps that's all any great teacher ever really gives us. The world doesn't change. We do. The robin had been doing that its entire life. I had simply never noticed it before.

For that, there are not words to express my thanks.