I sometimes work as a church security volunteer. Â And when I do it, I get to simply stand and watch. Â Watch for someone sick or injured (we have defibrillators and wound care equipment). Â Watch for someone coming to cause harm. Â Watch in order to call the police. Â Watch to keep the children safe.
And it occurs to me, when I do it, that watching is incredibly important. Â I know this as a physician. Â It’s my job to watch. Â Watch breathing, watch heart rhythms. Â Watch behavior and watch for wounds. Â Watch families and interactions. Â Watch, watch, watch.
I remember when my children were small. Every night, before work or before bed, I would watch them breathing. Â Every night I would stand by them in the darkness, their chests risking, their breath rhythmic and barely a whisper. Â Some nights, wheezing and coughing, febrile, breathing faster.
Watching. Â When my wife was ill I would watch her breathe in the night. Â Put my hand onto her side to feel the rise and fall of ribs.
Sometimes at night, on our hilltop home, I hear the cats hissing and howling. Â The dogs barking. I walk outside to nervous animals. Â The dogs roaming and doing their own watching. The cats, tails thick as bottle brushes, anxious, eyes wide. Â Watching. Â I don’t know what spooks them. Â Probably coyotes. Â But who knows in the thick forests of night in the Blue Ridge?
We don’t watch now, do we? Â I mean, not our environment. Â We search and click. We watch our various devices. We listen and are entertained. We view. Â And it’s fun, no question! Â It seems safe to watch without purpose. Â To watch without a perception of danger. Â To watch, not because we are acting on untold eons of human instinct, but to watch because we’re acting on two decades of screen addiction. Â It seems safe indeed. Â But is it?
The thing is, there is still danger. Â And there is still, deep inside our old brains, encoded in the amazing base-pairs inside our cells, the need to watch. The instinct. The drive. Â There is still a sense, or a memory, that we should just watch.
The news should tell us this. Â Even though we live in perhaps the safest time in all of human history, we need to cultivate watching. Â We need to look and notice. Â To catalog and list, to practice noticing and recalling. Â To see what is the same, and what changes. Â To learn what things are where, what people are coming or going. Â This is what we should do.
Phones down, ear-buds out, computer shut. Â Just stand, or walk, or sit and look. Â The way our ancestors have for millions of years.
It may or may not save your life. Â But if nothing else, I believe it will enrich your life.
There is an Italian aphorism: “La Dolce di Fare Niente” that translates to “The Sweetness of Doing Nothing,” a sentiment not unlike that expressed in your essay “Just Watch!”.
Sebastian, thank you! That’s wonderful. Stated more bluntly by one of my nationally known emergency medicine colleagues; ‘don’t just do something, stand there!’
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There is an Italian aphorism: “La Dolce di Fare Niente” that translates to “The Sweetness of Doing Nothing,” a sentiment not unlike that expressed in your essay “Just Watch!”.
Sebastian, thank you! That’s wonderful. Stated more bluntly by one of my nationally known emergency medicine colleagues; ‘don’t just do something, stand there!’