If my son's eagle eye hadn't spotted it & he wasn't about to pick it up, would you have spotted the agget? This is spring gravel from winter icy road sand, waiting for the sweeper machine to collect it. He spotted this one in about a minute. He has trained his eye to look for the different light reflecting in the sunshine.
I love details, yet at times they drive me crazy. An interesting piece of artwork has slightly skewed & usually not quite perfect details. This forces the eye to keep coming back & studying it in a pleasing way, looking for pattern or sense or simply a relating point. As the viewer it is my choice to accept or reject what I see, or to just interpret what suits me. We learn to do this by experience.
I find its strange how people can be so judgmental about obsessions/passions. An obsession owns you, but you own your passion. People are interested in all sorts of things all over the world, this should be celebrated. Interests make people interesting, it doesn't matter if they collect shoes, stamps, antique tools, or movie trivia. What we like changes throughout our lives. The best question to ask a teenage person is not "what are you going to do when you graduate grade 12?" but "What do you really like to do?" Its a good question among new acquaintances too.
This is a whole spring of my son's rock collecting. He automatically does this, he loves it. The thrill of the hunt, the pride of the find, it makes him happy. I am happy he has learned to direct his focus & energy this way. The challenge is getting him to understand this focus has to be applied to many things, pleasant & unpleasant.
He collected this jar with repetition; learning & relearning is often the same way.
