Watching the world go by is a very enjoyable pastime, if, like me, you have a fairly active imagination and are slightly too nosey for your own good. Basically what this hobby involves is sitting on a bench, in a town somewhere and just looking around. At first it might seem boring, but then you begin to notice things you have never seen before. Like a door halfway up a building that leads to nowhere, or a gargoyle that looks exactly like your best friend. But the most interesting part of doing this is the people.
There are a lot of people in this world, and each one has a life. This is something you don’t tend to realise when your getting on with your own. When you’re driving down a street, do you ever think about where the people going the opposite way to you are going? Do they live in this town? Are they passing through for the same time? Are they in a hurry to get somewhere? Why? One of the most enjoyable aspects of simply watching the world go by is you can make guesses about what people are doing, who they are, what job they have, and, most importantly if they are an attractive member of the opposite sex (or same sex depending on your personal preference) , do you have a chance with them.
The odd thing is, after doing this a lot you become good at it, it’s an addictive hobby, you feel as if you know these people, even though you have only seen them for five seconds. Your guesses get quicker and deeper, suddenly you feel as if you could go up to them and know their life story before they told you. It can effect your life in other ways, suddenly you will not be rejected when you ask someone out because you will have a good idea if you have a chance, also you will always have something to talk about, people do the strangest things. One of the most common is seeing an important looking business man walking down the street talking loudly into his phone when it’ll ring, see how many cover ups there are. The most common is none at all and merely embarrassed frustration as he answers the intruding call, one of the least common is any who can keep his head and simply say “oh, I’ve got another call coming through.”
Best of all though, whilst sitting there watching the world go by, your mind can drift, new nodes can be composed, new ideas thought through, new schemes hatched and new thoughts occur. However if you have no imagination, or are very physically active, this is not for you, but then, since you are on E2, and my be a noder, you cannot be very physically active, (you spend hours composing new write-ups for God’s sake) and must have a good imagination.
Good places to sit are train stations, city centres, shopping centres and park benches. Don’t star though, odds are the person won’t like it, and no one likes being arrested for stalking.