Artists learn shadows aren’t just gray. Look closer at anything and it gets more colorful.

Dullness is often just a measure of how long you looked. Study a shadow properly and it turns out to hold blue, violet, reflected light from the grass, none of which you saw from across the room. The same correction waits in a class you call boring or a person you wrote off in one afternoon. Flatness is usually a lack of attention rather than a fact about the thing.

Spend ten minutes this week looking hard at one ordinary object and list five details you had never registered. Then run the same experiment on a subject you find dull. Give it the attention before you give it the verdict.