Omaha By Design: Omaha, Only Better

by Ken Mayer
I watched a mall security camera clip recently with some considerable amusement as a woman, focused on texting, walked directly into the mall’s water feature. We can probably all agree that texting while driving is a bad idea, but we seem more divided on the subject of the distracted walker.

Distractions of all kinds erode the quality of our lives in public. They cut off a very basic part of what makes us civilized, consideration for other people. You can’t be considerate of others if you lack what’s called ‘situational awareness.’ It’s the simple ability to observe what’s going on around you.

I’m not suggesting some kind of Sherlock Holmes super power to see clues, just being a bit more present, in the moment, if you will.

Maybe this lack of situational awareness is why some of us block aisles in retail stores. Do we not see that we are in other people’s way?

Maybe it’s why we answer the phone in the middle of a conversation with an old friend who is standing right there in person. Do we not realize that it’s rude?

Maybe it’s why we don’t shovel our walks. Have we simply not noticed that it needs to be done?

As Walt Kelly’s famous comic strip character Pogo Possum put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo’s idea appeared on a poster that Kelly inked for the first Earth Day.

‘The enemy is us’ seems particularly appropriate these days. We Baby Boomers have always tried to be too cool for our shoes. We have always thought of ourselves as smart, educated, sophisticated and young, even though the first boomers reached retirement age this year.

Maybe we have passed along too much hipness to the next generation, along with the technology. Maybe we have deprived others of their situational awareness. We always thought we would change the world, and in many ways we did, but on a very basic level we may have made things worse by indulging distractions.

Changing the world may now mean looking inward.

Is the sidewalk in front of your house clear enough to get a wheelchair through? Have you heard a loud “Excuse me” lately because you made an aisle impassable? Have you snubbed an old friend by answering your phone in their presence?

Seems to me we love to be distracted. It means not having to be considerate of others. And worse, we often give the offenders a free pass.

This is no small matter because distractions are often used against us. Our short attention spans preclude considering any idea that takes longer than 90 seconds to explain. And since we don’t observe carefully, sometimes important issues get past us before we get the next text message.

Consider Lewis Carroll’s dialogue in Alice: “’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”

This sort of semantic distraction is still being used. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Maybe it’s time we started paying more attention to what’s going on around us. It will make us better and more considerate citizens, parents and friends.