People Watching

People talk about "people watching" all the time, but usually as no more than watching people. But there is so much more to it. Looking does nothing without thinking. When you watch people, what are you looking at? What do you see?

What are the patterns you see? Do people keep wearing the same outfits, saying the same phrases, bringing up the same subjects, using the same objects? Why is this the case? What makes these outfits/phrases/subjects/objects so awesome that everybody deals with them?

Do you see the patterns being broken? How so? Why do you suppose that happened? What does this say about the patterns you thought you knew? If one pattern is broken, what other patterns could be broken?

I will say that you can use "people watching" as an excuse to stare into space and let your mind wander (it's more like counting sheep to reach a meditative state), but unless you are already prone to getting ideas by staring into space, staring into space in front of strangers probably won't be of much help to you.

I think the lesson here is that nothing is as easy as it is depicted. Nobody sits down and writes a perfect novel. Nobody submits their work to publishers and gets accepted every time. Nobody watches people and gets brilliant ideas beamed into them. Everything requires work and effort for it to be useful.