The seat facing backward lets you watch places become memories in real time.

Facing backwards on a train shows you the going rather than the coming. Everything enters already leaving, and you watch a street or a field shrink instead of grow, which is closer to how memory actually works than the forward view is. The same journey, turned around, becomes a lesson in departure rather than arrival. It is oddly steadying to watch the receding on purpose for once.

Take the backward seat sometime this month and see what happens to your attention. Noticing what you are moving away from is a habit worth having in more places than a train.