People – watching? Please explain!
People-watching gives you not just a new view on other people, but on the world. The people are the cogs, and it is only through removing oneself from the machine that one can see the whole splendid thing working away.
(Cody Delistraty 2013)
A friend once remarked: “John, you often seem to stand back from a situation and try to work out what’s going on before getting involved” and added ” Typical Social Worker behaviour”. When I thought about what he’d said, I had to agree with his remarks. This kind of caution is undoubtedly, well embedded within my personality and has probably served me well during my Social Work career. It has enabled me to be a good listener and helped me to refrain from “jumping in” to suggest possible solutions before really understanding the problems. This tendency to “look before you leap” has probably also been beneficial during the years I spent working in health services research and planning. In the complex domain of public health services, social dynamics were often as important as biomedical issues, in framing deliverable recommendations. Accordingly, patient observation of human interactions was, more often than not, time well spent.
This is why I chose the theme,”People Watching” for this website. On “People Watching” you can read and respond to opinion pieces on a range of contemporary Australian health and social issues. The website will also keep you up-dated about my music and other publications.
Happy reading!
People Watching 