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veen  ·  3819 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A new entry for the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

To add to this: the most important thing to note here, is that it is you, OftenBen, who discovers it. Let me elaborate on why that's important.

Say you manage to go to Amsterdam. There's a pretty large chance you'll discover the Kalverstraat pictured above. You will definitely not be the first to discover that. Not by a long shot.

But you will be the first you to discover that place. Maybe you are into European architecture, and you see those old buildings above the shops and wonder how old they are. Maybe you recognised some of those brands from ads. Maybe you know something about meteorology and want to know what kind of clouds those are. Maybe it reminds you of that time you went to Germany, or maybe it reminds you of a song.

You can watch the world around you in so many different ways and most of them are really unique to you. There are so many different perspectives to have that most places you go are discovered by you - if you take the time to look closely. The devil's in the details, like ref says. Maybe that's not "real" discovery in the cartographic sense, but it definitely is a discovery to you and I think that is much more important.

There is just far too much stuff we don't know or haven't bothered to think about - to say that there isn't anything left to discover is to underestimate the immensity of details our world has.