Today I took a 30-minute auto ride to a repair shop and volunteered myself to not listen to any music, just observe.

To my surprise I got this peculiar yet entertaining driver. He was about 25 or so, with a very rushing, chaotic kind of vibe, but not anxious at all. The funny part was he started singing songs aloud. I didn’t know how to feel about it at first, but I loved how he was enjoying himself. In between the singing he called some relative, telling them that this time he will be coming home for Eid, and then went right back to his singing routine.

Everything outside the auto seemed very serious and functional, but inside there were emotions in play.

I didn’t ask him many questions even though I wanted to compliment him, but I choked, I don’t know why. Maybe he was in an escape, or maybe he was just free from a lot of things. My head kept trying to find a reason for him to be this free and self-enjoying, which also made me notice my own unconscious disbelief that someone in this profession at such an age could be this carefree. Maybe I was even a bit jealous.

I wonder, if I designed his portfolio website, what would it look like.

When you have a design eye, things make you feel things. Things you can’t fully comprehend, and can’t really explain.

In those moments something pulls at your eye like a magnet. And strangely, you don’t feel the urge to put it into words. You don’t want to make sense of what it’s making you feel, or why. All you want to do is acknowledge the feeling, even without understanding it.

It can be as simple as a lamp’s glow seen from far away, behind the silhouettes of palm trees, at night, from inside a café. Or as complex as a brutalist building, its design probably never meant to be admired, that catches you from across the road and makes you go: huh. I don’t know why I noticed it. And I don’t want to explain it any further.

These moments keep multiplying. The more you notice, the more there is to notice, and the more there is to acknowledge. It makes you realise how grand this world really is.

But it’s also a lot. If you tried to take in everything, your senses would be overwhelmed and worn out in no time. So at first you make a conscious effort not to. Slowly your body learns the pattern, and starts ignoring things on its own, quietly, to protect your senses.

There’s something a little sad about that. We have these senses precisely so we can see and feel these things, and then we train ourselves out of using them.

Still, almost everything I notice gives me the same small rush: this could be a new project. What exactly is this making me feel? Would it make someone else feel the same way? That curiosity keeps me on my toes.

What’s the point of all this? Honestly, I don’t know. But I know this for a fact: if I stopped noticing, I’d be holding myself back from the freedom of feeling things.

I have a word for sadness. I don’t have a word for what that light made me feel.

I think there are many things I can’t explain simply because I’ve never felt them before. Sadness I can explain; I have a name for it. That light, I can’t.

In the moment, I don’t want to explain it. But afterwards a different urge shows up: I want to give it a name. I want to define it better, so that one day I can say, with some confidence, if I make something this way, it will make you feel this.

People might call that intuition. Maybe it will be my superpower as a designer.

But only if I keep letting myself experience things, and feel them.

Got a lift from this sweet pair, about in their late 80s, late at night after an anniversary.

Besides the welcoming tone, one thing was noticeable right away and quite interesting. One of them was driving using maps in a city like Pune, with flyovers and multiple deviations and intersections. Even I doubt myself with maps here, and he was using the screen on his car display to broadcast the maps live.

It took him quite a few attempts to get it connected and working. While pressing the button, his trembling hands would slide a tiny bit, and it would register as a slide instead of a press. I thought again and again to tell him that it wasn’t pressing, but I felt it shouldn’t be the case that he didn’t know about his trembling hands, and it would be very impolite, especially to a kind elder who agreed to drop me home.

But he was calm, patient, trying again and again until it worked. No panic whatsoever.

After some distance we had a turn, and it didn’t register on the screen that we had already turned. It was confusing, but again no panic, just calm and observation. Even his friend said, “We have to turn left, the machine said left, why are we going the other way?” He just said,

“Well, when you’re confused, you just have to keep observing the car on the map. If the route is still getting shorter, it means we will get to the place intended.”

This felt like a slap to my stereotypical designer face, which thought tech is hard for older adults. He had it better than me and needed no help, just an amazing level of patience and observation.

It made me think that whenever we design something for older people, we always focus on making it as easy as possible, but maybe there’s a threshold to simplifying things. Maybe people are more comfortable with a better learning curve of something slightly advanced.

Or maybe my design references need serious updating.

I kept wondering for the rest of the trip how he learned that. Maybe from a younger family member… or maybe I’m just giving my stereotypes more fuel with that thought.