To be interesting, we have to be interested, that is, an atypical perspective discovers atypicality in our surroundings.

Different is a way of seeing. But it doesn’t come naturally, it flows through some mental defect, which, if lacking, takes some pre-programming to tilt the visionary compass.

Taste is grown and groomed by shapeshifting through variegated sources. Adopting a different sound and culture in near intimacy temporarily relieves one from the obstinacy of local.

Parochialists wear blinders, perhaps on purpose, as if to say any other religion is inherently wrong. They favor a world of deliberate ignorance painted into concreteness. Are they to blame for their stagnant internal weather and intolerance for abstraction?

Water chooses water and, when unrestricted, becomes an obstacle to itself. Water needs an aim. “Water the flowers, not the weeds,” as the Buddhist monk Thich Nhan Hanh reminds us.

Expanding the scope of attention offers the right stuff. By tuning into and sucking their surroundings, organically and/or purposively for self-growth, the curious benefit from their high-alert state.

Content synthesizers grasp the duality of the dialectic. As Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

Paradoxes are linked with knowledge and understanding, giving open minds the upper hand.