For me, it took some longevity to learn to really appreciate geology. When I was in school, geology textbooks were pretty dull-looking. Someone gave me a rock collection with rocks glued to a posterboard, each one identified with the name of the type of rock: granite, pyrite, or sandstone. One of them was an amethyst, a purple gemstone, rough and uncut, as it looked when it was dug from the earth, shaped like a tiny crystalline rocket. I found them fascinating but that was about the extent of my appreciation of geology at that time.