That was awesome. Please tell me everything.

I was once called to do my service for a legal proceeding.

Part of me dreaded having to take off work to sit at the courthouse all day. But the moment I arrived, that dread vanished like a fart in the wind.

Because all of the sudden, I was living inside one of those police procedural shows. Everywhere I turned, there were lawyers, judges, cops, perps, witnesses and the like. People wearing suits and carrying briefcases and walking purposefully. Not to mention the sea of humanity around them.

Jury duty might be the best people watching experience you can have, outside of the airport or the beach.

Then the proctor called my name for selection. I followed a herd of my peers into a small, hot, windowless room to be interviewed for our suitability to serve on the jury for a certain case.

Both counsel entered, introduced themselves, and delivered an overview of the case. It was a workman’s comp lawsuit between an injured construction worker and the corporation that hired him. They started asking us questions like this.

Have you brought suit for compensation of any kind? Have you ever been injured on the job? Have you ever been denied medical care? Have you ever wanted to sue someone? Has anyone in your family been involved in a labor union? Do you think you could fairly evaluate the evidence in this case without letting your views on unions influence your decision?

Most of those questions didn’t apply to me, but there was a young woman next to me who raised her hand. She admitted that she was an active member of a local socialist nonprofit.

The two lawyers looked at each other with complete poker faces, and calmly asked the woman to join them in the hallway for a brief chat. Three minutes later she returned to the room, grabbed her purse, winked at me, and then walked out.

Someone in the room said, candidate number thirteen has been dismissed from the jury pool.

Whoa. What the hell just happened? That was awesome. Please tell me everything.

I later learned that jurors are dismissed because of strong ideological biases, distrust of legal systems, and potential influence on other jurors. Socialists are clearly biased towards labor, so it made total sense.

The lawyer for the giant corporation was probably afraid that woman would start handing out pamphlets titled, why every workplace injury is a symptom of capitalism.

Anyway, many lessons continued to show up as the trial proceeded. I spent a total of two weeks on jury duty, trying to make the most out of the experience.

But forget about the measly forty bucks a day they paid me. My joyous exploration transformed what might have been a monotonous, routine task, into something deeply interesting and meaningful. I actually felt kind of patriotic, which isn’t typical for me. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Maybe next time I’ll get a triple homicide case.

My recommendation is, even if you’re not genetically predisposed to high openness and curiosity, seek out new situations where you have to think in depth about something. Try investigating things for the positive experience of it.

The only downside is, you will bump up against ideas that make you uncomfortable.

Take it from someone who wears a nametag twenty four seven. Sometimes you encounter people who you’d rather not engage with.

But at the end of the day, the over under works in your favor.

What fascinating features of the world consume you?