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Interesting.

I recently saw the Jason Bourne movie, which is why this thread interested me. I watched the movie, and that part just stuck out at me. It isn’t a very long part of the movie, but as I watched it, the concept just hit me, and I realized that we all do it to some degree, however small or well.

I thought about that one scene a lot afterwards, and realized that it was something that could be developed and honed by doing it often and thinking consciously about it.

It isn’t hard to conceptualize, but...it isn’t easy to reliably develop, in my opinion. Unless you are someone whose livelihood depends on it (such as a cop or a pilot) the OODA loop isn’t a natural thing because...most of us are easily distracted. Like a lot of things, to be successful at it, and find utility in it, you have to habitualize it, and that isn’t a natural thing.

But you can develop it no matter who you are, of that I am certain. That is why the linked article (from a website that experience has shown me sometimes has good stuff, and...sometimes insanely stupid stuff!) was so interesting. It gave some tips.

I was one of the last people I knew to get a cell phone. I had to, for professional reasons, being on call all the time. On my ride home, and driving around in a 25 mile radius, I had a good understanding of where every single pay phone was. Not only that, I knew the kinds of places that *might* have a pay phone.

I used to joke that pay phones were, for me, like trees probably were to our ancestors who walked the earth with a lot of predators that like to make meals of them. As they walked in that primitive landscape, they probably knew, without even consciously thinking of it, where every single tree that could be climbed was within their field of view, and how fast they could get to it if they had to.

They had situational awareness.

I think it is harder for us in many ways, because the threats to us are not as immediately obvious as a saber-toothed tiger appearing within our field of view. But that can be developed.

Just talk to any GI or Marine who rode around in vehicles in Afghanistan or Iraq. They got to the point where they nearly developed a sixth sense about things as they drove. The orientation and shape of a dog carcass on the side of the road. Types of roadways, structures, and curves or hills that were innately dangerous. Cars occupied and unoccupied on and around the road. Terrain features, mounds of dirt, pipes going under the roads. Many of those guys got to the point they almost couldn’t help seeing things that jumped out at them. They could glance at a car sitting near a road, and something about the way the tires were would scream a warning at them involuntarily, sharpening their focus. (I wasn’t there, this is what I have read and heard from those who were, and it really stuck with me)

It is a wonder any of them could even come stateside and enjoy simply driving down a road after all that. Habits die hard...