Learning to See

I am re-reading, but it seems like I am reading for the first time, Freeman Patterson's book, Photography and the Art of Seeing. I have yet to make it through the second chapter. I guess you could say that I am still on lesson one, learning to see sideways. Patterson gives several exercises in thinking sideways:
1) Draw up a list of some photographic rules; then go out and break them.
Rule 1. Always hold your camera steady.
Rule 2. Be sure the centre of interest is in sharp focus.
Rule 3. Follow your light meter.
Then, take this list and, with various subjects, make pictures in direct contradiction to the rules.
Breaking Rule 1.
Jump up and down in the forest, and press the shutter release as you jump.
Run as fast as you can toward a parked car, and press the shutter release as you run.
Make sure the strap on your camera is absolutely secure. Set the shutter at a slow speed, and activate the self-timer. Then, swing your camera in circles, or back and forth, until the shutter has released.
Breaking Rule 2.
Make a series of pictures in which the main subject matter is clearly out of focus, but other things are sharp.
Shoot a sunset, a flower, and the surface of backlighted water, entirely out of focus.
Breaking Rule 3.
After you have read your light meter, make a series of photographs with five different subjects in which you overexpose each one the equivalent of two full f/stops or shutter speeds. Overexpose ever more if you are using black and white film. Then repeat the exercise while underexposing two full f/stops.
When you look at the resulting slides or negatives or digital images, you must view them in the same frame of mind as you took them. If you don't, you may reject them all as disasters. Keep on behaving as if the old dominant ideas no longer exist. Remember, the whole idea of these exercises is to break away from what you've been doing.

And so you can see, lesson one on learning to see sideways can go on and on.
We are reluctant to become rule breakers. I am one. I get stuck in ruts of doing the same shots over and over with the same predicted results. There is comfort in that. But there can also be burnout, or boredom. If all you ever did in a relationship was every night, sit at the same table quietly and eat your meal silently, soon, the relationship would end. The same with photography. Turn over the tables, look someone in the eye and start fresh.