When I was studying in the US, after my friends went to bed on Friday nights, I would head to the TV room to watch Australian Rules Football on ESPN.
One night, Brian stumbled in. He was from Baltimore, studying for a PhD in either physics or chemistry. He sat down and we watched together for about half an hour.
Then Brian said, “I love this game.”
“Oh good. What do you love most about it?”
Brian stood up, waved his arms about and said, “Those little guys in the white jackets waving their arms.”
This caught me off guard. I was expecting him to say something about the running, jumping, tackling, kicking or high marking. But his favourite part of the game wasn’t the game. It was the goal umpires waving their flags to signal a score.
Five minutes later, Brian asked: “Why do they call it Aussie Rules?”
I replied literally. “Well, it’s an Australian game and they made up the rules, so that’s what they call it.”
He countered: “But there don’t seem to be any rules.”
This made me laugh. But it also made me wonder what was going on.
Two men, same room, same television, same game and our experience of it couldn’t have been more different.
Brian saw players running around in what appeared to be fairly chaotic fashion. I was watching the leads, tackles, marks, positioning, mistakes and opportunities. Sometimes, I could even see what a player was trying to do before they did it.
I’d played Australian Rules Football for over fifteen years. That experience had made distinctions available to me that weren’t yet available to Brian.
I could have spent ten minutes explaining holding the ball, marks, behinds and boundary throw-ins. Brian would then have possessed more knowledge about football. But he still wouldn’t have been watching the same game as me.
Knowledge could tell Brian what was happening. But my experience changed what I could notice while it was happening.
And even among experienced players, no two people see the same game. As a small and fast player, I saw opportunities to grab the ball and run. A taller player might have seen an opportunity to take a high mark. A coach might have been watching the structure of the game and deciding which player to deploy where.
The same moment offers different possibilities depending on what experience has taught us to notice.
But Brian comment’s revealed something more. He wasn’t necessarily noticing less; he was noticing something I had almost stopped noticing entirely.
The goal umpires had become peripheral in my world; background detail, functional but invisible. Brian’s fresh eyes made those strange little men in white coats waving flags the most fascinating thing on the screen.
Brian saw the spectacle but not the game. I saw the game but not the spectacle.
And that’s the thought many years later that I remember most.
We often assume experience allows us to see more. But perhaps it’s more accurate to say it teaches us what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Over time, some things become more visible while others almost disappear.
Experience gives us a way of seeing. But every way of seeing makes other ways of seeing less available.
Brian couldn’t see the game I could see. And until that night, I couldn’t see the game Brian could see either.
What has your experience taught you to see so well that you may have stopped noticing what a beginner still can?
This is Field Note #16. Field Notes are observations from my ongoing enquiry into experience. To learn more about how to make the most of your experience, read these posts next:
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