Opening paragraphs................

 

I taught religion once, many years ago, and I greatly enjoyed it.  But I never had much use for theology.  There are, I am told, some thirty-five thousand different species of flies.  But if the theologians had their way, there would only be one, the right Fly.  The Creator glories in diversity.  And no species is more diverse than those two-legged creatures, Men and Women.  Even as a small child I marvelled at their diversity.  And I have never met a single uninteresting person.  No matter how conformist, how conventional, or how dull, people become fascinating the moment they talk of the things they do, know, or are interested in.  Everyone then becomes an individual.  The most conventional person I can recall, a banker in a small New England town, who seemed to know nothing but the most hackneyed clichés, became fascinating when he suddenly started talking about buttons throughout the ages—their invention, their shapes, their materials, their functions and uses—with a fire and passion worthy of a great lyrical poet.  The subject did not interest me much; the man did.  He has become an individual.

-Peter F. Drucker, from the Preface to the New Edition, Adventures of a Bystander: Memoirs