Do you need a mental multivitamin?

My friend Liz sent me a link to this neat blog http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2003/10/on-nightstand-archive.html and one of the books she's reading is "How to Be an Explorer of the World" (Keri Smith) The blog says...

In a neat bit of synchronicity, Smith includes a variation on the Kalman quote above (about walking the world with all of the essentials in a backpack) in the opening pages of her "Portable Art Life Museum." Asserting that artists and scientists view their worlds in "surprisingly similar ways" -- observation, collection, analysis, comparison, pattern identification -- Smith describes how to become an explorer of the world:

1. Always be looking. (Notice the ground beneath your feet.)

2. Consider everything alive and animate.

3. Everything is interesting. Look closer.

4. Alter your course often.

5. Observe for long durations (and short ones).

6. Notice the stories going on around you.

7. Notice patterns. Make connections.

8. Document your findings (field notes) in a variety of ways.

9. Incorporate indeterminancy.

10. Observe movement.

11. Create a personal dialogue with your environment. Talk to it.

12. Trace things back to their origins.

13. Use all of the senses in your investigations.

Cool huh?