We cannot create observers by saying 'observe ' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.
I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.
The interesting thing is when we design and architect a server we don't design it for Windows or Linux we design it for both. We don't really care as long as we're selling the one the customer wants.
Over the past 20 years I have noticed that the most flexible dynamic inquisitive minds among my students have been industrial design majors. Industrial designers are bracingly free of ideology and cant. The industrial designer is trained to be a clear-eyed observer of the commercial world - which like it or not is modern reality.
We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow and courage from the jay who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.
I was always an observer even as a child. I could be satisfied to sit in a car for 3 hours and just look at the street go by while my mother went shopping.
A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees will often be stung for his curiosity.
If there was an observer on Mars they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.