Noticing

What does it mean to notice something? To really see it. In his exhilarating quest to help us notice better, Ziyad Marar poses a deceptively simple question: “what are you good at noticing?” In the process of ‘noticing what we notice’, we re-attune to questions of perception, orientation, and above all, attention: How do we walk the wrong way down the street without being aware of it? What is happening in us when our eyes pass unseeing over a familiar face in a crowded restaurant? Are we looking up into the sky, or down at the ground? And when we notice what we notice, and what we overlook, what do we learn about ourselves?

In a triple corkscrew of philosophy, psychology, and art, particularly literature, Marar unwinds the impenetrable tangles of noticing in a world replete with distractions, interruptions, and, at times, horror. Invisible gorillas, con artists, and magicians are among the unlikely assistants enlisted in the task of trying to work out not just what noticing is, but what it could be; a practice of deeply minded attention, of thoughtful witnessing. In the end, our noticing is tied up with the very core of our humanity – the capacity to connect, to care, to attend to others and the world.