Up is the new down

Someone once told me that dogs can’t look up. After the serendipitous, albeit not entirely legal acquisition of several dogs and the systematic placing of bones, dog food, and even cats on formidably high shelving, I at last determined that this was utter bollocks. But it got me thinking. Dogs can look up, but can people?

Well, of course, they can – the mechanical basis is there. I’ve spent many an hour manhandling anatomy skeletons into a variety of ungodly shapes and looking up is but one permutation. But out on the streets, it’s hard to find any in vivo confirmation.

In fact, on the underground, it’s practically unheard of. Commuters have gone several stops past their destination to save the public humiliation of having to look up as the station names, emblazoned upon the platform walls, flash by. I think it might a defence mechanism, a throw-back to that stage of evolution when the human race was particular vulnerable to having its throat ripped out. In looking up, we expose a very fleshy, very vital piece of anatomy, practically welcoming a good garrotting.

It may have started as a means of survival, but keeping our heads down nowadays is beginning to work against us

So resisting the urge to look up is a survival strategy, part of the “head down and carry on” mentality of the collective. Still, I think it’s sad that a young woman under attack is more likely to receive help from passers-by if she shouts “fire!” than if she cries “rape!” It may have started as a means of survival, but keeping our heads down nowadays is beginning to work against us.

This is such a shame because I think people are missing out on something incredible, something you can only see when you look up. To make sure you get a really good gander at it, you need to go somewhere high, or open. Preferably both.

I can vouch for the top of the Queen’s Tower and Hampstead Heath, they’ll both do. Go up on a really clear day and you can see it. What are you looking for, you ask? Nothing.

I find there’s nothing better than looking up at bright azure sky and seeing absolutely nothing, save for the faintest whispers of cloud.

For me, there is nothing more inspirational than a big fat nothing. Firstly, there are no boundaries, no limits, on a blue summer’s sky. If the sky can’t be fenced, why should I be? Break out, live dangerously, do something that scares people! Those people who say the sky is the limit just aren’t thinking big enough. Secondly, it is the ultimate blank canvas. You could do anything on a clear sky, from playing about with sky–writing and making shapes out of the clouds to circumnavigating the world in a hot-air balloon...and a moustache. There’s so much potential, it actually makes me tingle.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Throughout the long, long annals of history there has not been a single person to draw inspiration from their shoes (with the possible exception of Doc Marten). Newton was gazing up at the moon in his orchard when gravity struck. In school, Einstein day-dreamed that he was riding a star-beam.

It is important to look up, and not just to be inspired. Sometimes, it is important to look up, just to feel good.

I mean, how can we ever hope to be up–lifted if we don’t know what things look like in that direction? Never underestimate the untold beauty that hangs above you. Unless it’s raining.