Same bus route every day, and you’ve never once looked at the buildings. Look up.

Familiar routes go invisible. Your brain files the whole trip under known and stops sending anything up, which is efficient and also means you have traveled the same street four hundred times without seeing a single building on it. The place did not get boring, your attention just stopped arriving.

On one trip this week, pick a side of the road and really look at it. Roof shapes, dates carved over doorways, what used to be there before the phone shop. You will notice that looking is a thing you can switch back on, which turns out to be useful far beyond the bus.