Surprise is the great enabler of seeing.*
Alan Jacobs

We care most about the things we have struggled to understand.**
Leon Festinger

It is possible to educate ourselves
for surprise,
according to “infinite player” James Carse;
The opposite is to train ourselves
against surprise:
Surprise causes finite play to end;
it is the reason for infinite play to continue.^
The infinite player
plays to be transformed by surprise.
And not only to be transformed but also
to be transformative.
To be open to surprise,
To see and to understand, is
to become powerful, or strong
as Carse names it:
Power is finite in amount.
Strength cannot be measured,
because it is an opening and not a closing act. …
Power will always be restricted to a relatively small number of selected persons.
Anyone can be strong.^
Power desires to get more,
Strength longs to give more.

*Alan Jacob‘s newsletter: Architectural Thoughts;
**Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling:
^James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.