discovery

It is never the idea alone that inspires. Have you ever run up against some one idea throughout your life, only to throw it out as trivial the first 50 times you hit upon it and be completely changed by it on the 51st encounter? The idea hasn't changed - so what accounts for the difference?

In reading other people and developing dialogue we expose ourselves to new ways of seeing. With new eyes comes the ability to see everything again for the first time. To reinterpret the world. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." (Proust) Books and dialogue are not the only way to take on new eyes, but they help, particularly when the people you're reading and talking with are brilliant. "The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on." (Coleridge/Newton/etc.) Running one's head into the ground is the result of approaching a thing in the same way over and over again. One rarely gets very far that way. There are lots of reasons people argue and debate. One reason is discovery. Another is fame. Two people might seem to be doing the same thing in all outward appearance, but I suggest that you can usually tell who is looking to discover and who is looking to be looked at.