The Real Act of Discovery Consists Not in Finding New Lands, But in Seeing with New Eyes

by nicopole in Lifestyle Choices, April 17, 2009

So as we can see, “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes” (Marcel Proust).

You can never know who you are, where you are, who is now aside you or what is the thing you hold in your hands if you don’t see these things with “eyes wide open”. If not, you risk to dye and make the biggest discovery of your life: you didn’t managed to take full advantage of the things that life offered, you didn’t managed to know better the people around you, or even you didn’t managed to know yourself. This is what the real act of discovery is about, not to always seek for the “new” in far away places, but to be acquainted with the places and people around you. By bringing the best in ourselves, we discover the best in others. The seeds of great discoveries always float next to us, but it takes the effort to look in the right way.

The greatest discoveries in science come from people who look at a standard situation and dare to see it in a different way. In the 1840’s the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero invented nitroglycerin a highly explosive liquid, but the discovery was considered to be much too dangerous to be of use. Alfred Nobel was the one who continued the study of nitroglycerin trying to improve it. His goal was to use it in constructions, and begins to elaborate ways to control the explosion and us it as a cheep method to destroy bocks of rocks in order to make way for buildings and bridges (his father worked in this domain). In 1867 his research is completed. He managed to control the high risk explosive and called it dynamite. Its purpose was to diminish the costs of clearing the space needed for constructions and mining. He had the courage to see the danger in his own way and he has succeeded till one point.