TABLE TALK #168
Somewhere along the way, we stopped looking up. Not metaphorically, but literally.
Heads lowered on pavements, eyes fixed on phones, all the while cloud formations, blossoming trees, other humans pass by unnoticed.
Today’s Table Talk is about the power of raising your gaze. A reminder that there’s quite a lot to marvel at when you simply look up.
🍝 MAIN COURSE 🍝
Modern life gives us unlimited stimulation, but very little stillness.
Every spare second can now be filled instantly. A scroll while the kettle boils. A podcast while walking. A quick check of emails at a red light that somehow turns into reading a stranger’s opinion on Icelandic monetary policy.
And let’s be clear, we’re absolutely not above this ourselves.
Phones are brilliant, useful, entertaining. The internet remains undefeated when it comes to finding out the net worth of a former contestant from Come Dine With Me.
But there is something oddly restorative about looking outward again.
Looking up at buildings you’ve passed a hundred times but never properly noticed. Catching snippets of conversation. Hearing birds instead of voice notes.
Perhaps that’s why people speak so glowingly about nature. Nature forces your attention outward. It interrupt the constant hum of yourself.
And awe, it turns out, is very good for us.
Not necessarily dramatic, cinematic awe, but the small kind. A beautiful old pub ceiling. The moon looking weirdly big for no clear reason. Those small moments where your brain stops sprinting ahead for a moment and simply notices where it already is.
There’s something special about eye contact too.
Not intense eye contact. Nobody’s suggesting we start staring deeply into stranger's eyes on the Central Line. Just the small acknowledgements.
Smiling at the person serving your coffee. Thanking the bus driver while actually looking at them. Tiny interactions that last perhaps two seconds, but remind everyone involved that they exist. It’s remarkable how quickly phones can flatten these moments.
Entire train carriages now sit together in complete silence, each person disappearing into their own glowing rectangle. Which, admittedly, can sometimes be preferable before 8am. But still.
A raised head changes things. You notice people. People notice you. Cities feel softer somehow. Less anonymous. Less like a collection of parallel lives moving past each other without contact.
And perhaps that’s part of why constant scrolling can feel so oddly draining. Not because screens are evil, but because they remove us from the physical texture of the world around us.
The sound of cutlery in a café. The smell of rain on pavement. Someone laughing loudly across the street. None of it life-changing. Yet cumulatively, perhaps, exactly that.
🍮 SWEET ENDINGS 🍮
Importantly, this isn’t an argument for abandoning technology and moving into a shepherd’s hut. Most of us aren’t going to suddenly become woodland philosophers.
It’s more about balance.
About reclaiming tiny pockets of attention. Leaving the phone in your pocket for one walk. Looking out the train window instead of down. Allowing a moment to fully belong to itself.
Because the strange thing about constantly documenting life is how easily it stops us properly inhabiting it.
Thousands of photos sit forgotten in camera rolls, while the real moment - the conversation, the atmosphere, the feeling - slips past unnoticed.
Perhaps looking up is really just another way of saying: be here while you’re here. Not all the time. Not perfectly. Just a little more often.
🍷 WHAT'S NEW
FROM
WEDNESDAY'S DOMAINE? 🍷
We spent the past week exhibiting at London Wine Fair, bringing our new 6.5% range to “the trade”.
When you’re close to something, it’s easy to lose perspective, to fixate on the details no one will ever notice...
It was an absolute joy and a massive vote of confidence, therefore, to see how well the wines were received by a very discerning and once-skeptical crowd.
Check them out inc. our magical
new rosé here.
Until next time,
Luke x