A Record of Human Behavior
As documented by an observer. From elsewhere.
What follows is a catalogued record of human behavior, observed over an extended period from a vantage point the observer declines to specify. The subjects were not informed of the study. The observer considered informing them and decided against it, on the grounds that awareness of observation tends to significantly alter the behavior being observed — which would have rather defeated the purpose.
These documents examine, with great care and very little mercy, the mechanisms by which humans organize, reduce, and simplify reality — and the inevitable moment when reality declines to cooperate. The observer has no particular quarrel with humanity. The observer simply finds it extremely difficult to look away.
Whether these records constitute comedy or tragedy is left as an exercise for the reader. The observer has opinions on this matter and has chosen to keep them.
* The observer notes that the humans most likely to find this page are the humans most likely to recognize themselves in it. The observer considers this both unfortunate and entirely appropriate.
How the Work Is Conducted
Direct Observation
The observer watches. The subjects go about their business. Neither party acknowledges the arrangement, though for different reasons — the subjects because they are unaware, and the observer because acknowledgment would be socially complicated.
Precise Documentation
Everything is written down. Every pamphlet distributed. Every certainty constructed. Every sofa sunk into. The observer has very good handwriting and an inexhaustible supply of notebooks, which is more than can be said for most of the subjects.
Reluctant Conclusion
The observer does not rush to conclusions. The observer waits for the conclusions to become so obvious that ignoring them would require active effort. At that point, the observer writes them down. Reluctantly. The humans could have simply not done the thing.
The Archive of Observations
Each document represents a complete study. The observer does not summarize. Summaries are a Sandy People problem.
The Sandy People and the Purple People
The observer identified two distinct subgroups within the broader human population. Neither group was consulted on this classification. The Sandy People, had they been consulted, would have immediately tried to rename themselves something more flattering. The Purple People would not have cared either way, which is rather the point.
Filed · Active · Subject Unaware Read the Field Report Document No. 002 Field Report · Personified Cognitive PhenomenonThe Giant: A Field Report
The Generalization Mentality Giant is approximately fifty feet tall, though the observer acknowledges that height is somewhat metaphorical when documenting a personified cognitive bias. He is not malicious. He has rose-tinted spectacles the size of house windows. He means very well. The observer has watched him erase exceptions for longer than seems strictly necessary.
Filed · Active · Subject Well-Meaning Read the Field Report Document No. 003 Street-Level Observation · Urban Field NotesMeditations on Society
The observer descended from elsewhere to ground level for this study, which required significant adjustment. At ground level, small men in tall shoes are considerably more numerous than expected. Their footsteps produce a hollow percussion that the observer finds difficult to unhear. Nobody stops them. The observer has been waiting to see if anyone will stop them. Nobody has. The observer is beginning to think nobody will.
Filed · Active · Observation Ongoing Read the Meditations Document No. 004 Philosophical Observation · Civilizational ScaleWe Know.
This document required the widest available aperture. The observer pulled back far enough to see the entire species at once — its certainties, its houses of cards, its extraordinary commitment to furnishing those houses before the cards have finished falling. The most remarkable finding: they know. They know the cards will fall. They hang pictures on the walls anyway. The observer finds this either deeply human or deeply troubling and has filed it under both.
Filed · Active · Conclusion Pending Read the ObservationThe observer wishes to clarify that these documents are not satire in the conventional sense — though they will make you laugh, and then make you uncomfortable about having laughed, which the observer acknowledges is a somewhat unkind outcome and has decided to pursue anyway.
The observer does not dislike the Sandy People. The observer finds them endlessly fascinating — in the way one finds a storm fascinating: with great interest, from a safe distance, and with no particular desire to be inside it.
If you have arrived at this page and recognized yourself in any of the documents above, the observer would like you to know that this recognition is the beginning of something, not the end of it. The observer has seen what comes next. The observer is cautiously optimistic on your behalf.
** The observer also notes that the humans who are most certain they are Purple People are sometimes the most Sandy. The observer declines to name names. The observer has, however, taken very detailed notes.
The observer does not judge. The observer records. Whether these records constitute comedy or tragedy depends entirely on when you ask — and who you ask it of.
Observed & Documented · Alexandria Graffiti · Still Elsewhere