“I was taking a break at work the other day when a stern-looking woman stopped near her car and watched me curiously before saying, "What are you doing?" I looked up from the ground. "What does it look like I'm doing?" She waited a moment, then said, "It looks like you're picking up rocks from the ground, looking at them closely, discarding some, then keeping a few." I smiled and said, "Spot on! Don't you ever pick up rocks you think are interesting and pretty?" She said, 'Well, yeah, I did that as a kid." I motioned for her to join me by the rocky slope. "Well, go ahead! It's still just as fun as when you were little." She paused a moment, and I went back to my activity. Soon she began picking up stones, looking at them and then asking my opinion about the ones she liked. Soon we were showing off the ones we thought were pretty, agreeing on the rocks that needed to "try harder" and "be more interesting", and giving each other stones that the other person liked. Her smile faded slightly as she stood and brushed off her blouse. “Well, have a good day." I said, "Thanks for playing with me for a little bit. This was fun!" She looked briefly shocked and said, in a voice full of wonder, "Yes, it was fun to play a bit." She sat in her car for a moment, held up a rock in her hand, gazed at it, and then drove away. Credit: Nate Hayes