Independent Online Edition > Interview with Brian Eno
I am a potential addict, he confesses. I know I would watch anything. I think the medium itself is so seductive. Just the passivity that it imposes on you, you don’t even have to turn a page. And then of course there’s the physical quality of the thing. The colour of the light is lovely. People have always liked sitting and looking at bright things, be it fireplaces or sunsets. It capitalises on their desire to be visually stimulated and their desire to be relax.

I also enjoyed this bit, where Eno talks about how impossibly hard it is for people to change their mind:

You saw the unchangeable loyalty that people feel to (political) parties, and how much it takes to change someone’s opinion about something they’ve invested in. People are very unwilling to abandon a position they’ve held because they think it invalidates their history. I wish I could change that mindset. What this country needs is a good opposition.

Solutions arise out of the willingness to look at a problem with a fresh, uncluttered, unprejudiced mind. It’s like searching for a tiny object you lost – you may pass it by 100 times without seeing it… and sometimes after walking away from the room and coming back there it is! How could I have missed that? It is so obvious.

I certainly find this true for everything in life. Sometimes a song escapes me. I can’t figure out what to do with it. Sometimes it is good to wrestle with it, but more often it is best for me to walk away. Get on the bicycle, take a walk, read a magazine or a book. When I return to that piece of music the solution often presents itself.

I admire people who can change their mind. Standing your ground is no more right than changing your mind. Depends entirely on the issue.