The Pleasure of Understanding

I know it's hard to understand why I spend so much time locked up, sitting, reading, and researching. It's a pleasure that's very difficult to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it firsthand, but I'd like to give it a try.

Understanding something after spending a long time trying and failing is a feeling analogous to trying to peel a slightly unripe orange with no tools except your nails. Suppose, in addition, that your nails have just been cut, so you can't puncture the skin to start peeling. You turn the orange over and over, but you can't seem to get started. You try to puncture the skin, but your nail slips; the orange is still unripe, and the skin is very smooth.

But one day, you discover a tiny hole in the skin of the orange, a fissure you hadn't noticed before. Maybe the orange has ripened with time, or maybe your nails have grown, but the fact is that this time you're able to peel off a tiny piece of skin. That feeling is indescribable, it's euphoric.

And best of all, it's just the beginning. Every day that passes, you're able to peel off more pieces of skin, to understand new parts of that "object" you wanted to understand. It's a pleasure that can last for a week or two, every day understanding new parts more easily. You're eager to turn the orange and find a new piece to peel.

Finally, you have the orange peeled completely, and you can eat it. But that's beside the point; it doesn't provide as much pleasure. The important thing is the process that came before.

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