I probably should have been medicated my entire life. In high school, I was at the height of my. scatterbrainedness. I signed up for a student council field trip that I had no business going on but whatever. The field trip was to see a speaker talk about the importance of eye contact and firm handshakes. Handshakes hold zero interest for me but eye contact was incredibly interesting. Our speaker said that it was important to make sustained eye contact with each person in a business meeting. I was 14 at the time so I put this into practice in daily life. I have to say that it isn’t always a good thing to check in with people’s eyes. It’s easy to get the impression that a person is irritated or happy and think it has something to do with your interaction.
Chris Marker talks about eye contact in his film San Soleil: “Have you ever heard of anything more stupid than what they teach at film school—not to look at the camera?” The narrator speaks this line as the camera’s eye waits for a woman he’s filming to look at him. The camera’s patience is rewarded and the woman makes direct eye contact. This fleeting moment, lasting only a single film frame (a 1/24 of a second), but you can feel it in your bones.
