>Additionally, I am making a concerted effort to notice more new details during routine tasks, like commuting or shopping. I can't count how many times I've discovered something new and interesting on my work commutes. Actually, I can: it's every time.
This is one of the underrated pleasures of commuting by bicycle. You aren't abstracted away from the world in a bubble of steel and glass. You see, hear, feel, countless little details, and you can reach out and touch them if you want. Potholes, pedestrians, birds, the wind and rain and sun, smells of food and flowers and weird chemicals, street music and overheard fragments of conversation. Millions of faces.
This is one of the underrated pleasures of commuting by bicycle. You aren't abstracted away from the world in a bubble of steel and glass. You see, hear, feel, countless little details, and you can reach out and touch them if you want. Potholes, pedestrians, birds, the wind and rain and sun, smells of food and flowers and weird chemicals, street music and overheard fragments of conversation. Millions of faces.