Collecting Surprises (Paul Graham Quote)

Note-taking for the sake of collecting ideas is fine. 

But collecting surprises – the twists and “holy s*** that’s awesome” ones – that’s when note-taking is valuable. 

In Paul Graham’s essay on essays (“The Age of the Essay”), he says, 

Collecting surprises is a similar process. The more anomalies you’ve seen, the more easily you’ll notice new ones. Which means, oddly enough, that as you grow older, life should become more and more surprising. When I was a kid, I used to think adults had it all figured out. I had it backwards. Kids are the ones who have it all figured out. They’re just mistaken. 

Surprise collecting. It compounds too. Why not write it down?