Years ago, I called for a tow truck.

The woman on the other end of the line asked the customary questions: “What’s wrong with the car?” (It no longer moves). “Where is it?” (Outside my window). After hanging up, I noticed that my girlfriend was staring at me in mute shock.

“What?” I asked.

“Did you tell them you have a red car?”

“Yeah. Why? I do.”

“Look.” She pointed at my indolent vehicle. With less surprise than you might assume, I realized that she was right. The car was brown. Not just a little brown. It was the brown of nearly burned caramel.

Hey, I’m not a visual person. I acknowledge it. And yes, it’s a problem.

I first realized it in grade school. One test, administered by computer, required its taker to look at a strange shape, imagine it flipped onto its side, and determine which of a series of options matched that flipped shape. Impossible! I did my best and failed, anyway.

Algebra was easy — that was just numbers and letters — but geometry hurt. In biology, I dissected a frog and found not the distinct and, ideally, clearly labeled shapes that I had hoped for, but undifferentiated brown lumps, any one of which might have been a liver, kidney, or heart.

Now, given that I could get lost in a closet and couldn’t recognize most of my cousins by sight, you would think that I’d have some humility about the visual arts. But young men rarely let a lack of knowledge prevent them from forming beliefs. When it came to art, I knew what I liked (maybe three painters, all of them long dead). I was a committed counter-revolutionary.

Looking to scrap, I signed up for Art History I and II, both taught by Terry Hall. Then I slouched in my seat, crossed my arms, and waited.

And learned.

Carefully, and with a kind of muted passion, Professor Hall taught us what had been done, and why it mattered. He taught us about the rigor and control Jackson Pollock brought to his drip paintings, about the mastery of technique and formal innovation Picasso displayed, about the dozens of paintings Cezanne made of Mont Sainte-Victoire, and how and why they differed. I began to understand what I had failed to see.

Well, so what, right? In the end, what does it matter how open you are to modern art? It doesn’t, really. And being closed off can have its pleasures. There’s a certain joy to be had in strolling through museums and making biting comments, while all around you people gaze in awe at black squares.

But what if you’re like that with people?

In college, I found myself put off by a certain type of person: extraverted in a mellow way; wearing sandals and hemp necklaces; and given to what we called “perma-grins” (permanent grins, caused either by illicit substances or an optimistic nature). They were always smiling. Hadn’t they gotten the bad news?

But I remembered what I’d learned about art: that if you expected not to like something, you probably wouldn’t, but the reverse held true, too.

So, surrounded by people playing hacky sack and listening to jam bands, I decided that I would like them.

And I did.

It turned out that these people, the kind of people I’d previously dismissed, were kinder and more generous than I was. They were more accepting of quirks, and more willing to take people at face value. I never bought a Phish CD, but I did uncross my arms.

Early adulthood is an important time. At that age, we still have choices to make. We still have some say as to what kind of people we will become.

But life narrows as we age. We settle comfortably into ourselves and into routines. That isn’t a bad thing; I take some pleasure in knowing that I have bought my last house. But the great danger is that we cross our arms, rejecting anything new and unfamiliar.

I read years ago of an old, old man who, visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time in his life, decided to ride a donkey down it. “If we fall,” he said, “it’ll be worse for the donkey.” I find that both charming and heroic.

Old men ought to be explorers, T.S. Eliot wrote. And there are many ways to explore. You can climb onto a donkey. Why not? Or you can walk into a museum, hopeful that you’ll find something worth your time. Or you can peer past a stranger’s hemp necklace, or tattoos, or regrettable hair, and say, “Hello,” which means I see you –, yes, I’m here, and I see you.

John Kissane, alumnus of Alpena High School and Alpena Community College, now lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, children, and terrible dog.