A great metaphor/ analogy for being eclectic?

Question

I'm trying to convey the sense of picking up the best qualities from a variety of differing sources, from everywhere!

Please help me out! I started out with sponge- absorption, assimilation..(however, a sponge picks up bad things as well and that's not what I'm going for) I'm still feeling out for a metaphor with the context of selective "picking up" and adopting things from others to become something great and if not original, then at least a wonderful assortment of qualities and uniquely put together

Like a melting pot- though people put things in, it doesn't do the picking up. Or a vacuum? That's quite terrible as well. I implore you to help me!

Answer 1

A comet as it passes through the heavens gathers dust and space particles from millions of solar systems.  It is the quintessential traveller and gatherer of different things.  The Greek talk a bit about this.

I don't know if you want to get that deep though.  You might just take the comet idea and keep it simple.

Answer 2

metal detector, you may get both:a good find or bad, but you can get rid of the bad.  or another way to look at it is a metal detector that tells you what you see so that you can skip the bad...i don't know if that makes sense but...

Answer 3

Oh, there's a type of -- I think it's a crab.  Can't remember the name of it now.  But, it's naturally eclectic.  It glues odd bits and pieces onto its shell.  Random stuff, useful for camouflage, makes its shell tougher to break into.

Well, that might not be so useful, since I can't remember what the thing is called.

Need something simple and direct?  What about a magnet?  A magnet pulls in objects of all sorts of sizes and shapes and purposes -- but only those objects that have just the right inner quality.  

An eclectic also finds himself attracted to anything with just the right inner quality, no matter where those things come from or what purpose they were shaped for.  As if the eclectic is drawn to things that have an inner spirit somehow like his own.  The same as the magnet is drawn to things with an iron essence, matching its own.