Being a first-class noticer, and cultivating the ability to attend to what others overlook, is crucial to any creative process.

Kalman hopes to “remind us that we should really be very curious and look around and not take things for granted,” he said. “Find the joy in wondering about that toilet paper roll or that coffee cup lid or that onion ring, and think: ‘Perhaps this is just as strong a definition of who we are as anything some sociopolitical journal might stamp on

One of the final challenges—“observe something else”—urges readers to go somewhere (“a park, a mall, a gas station, a café”), sit awhile, and just look. “Pause and imagine what a single person is thinking,”