> Pick something you've never done before, and do that.
You run out of those things shortly after birth. The vast majority of the aspects of everything that you attempt are familiar, and you have already developed habitual approaches to them. Having "never done something before" is shorthand for some experience having some aspect that you have never experienced before, not complete novelty. I'm going to build the strategies of flying a spaceship on the strategies I built learning to drive a car, which were built on the strategies I built learning to walk, which were built on the strategies I built learning to crawl, to manipulate my parents by crying, to identify distinct objects using my eyes, etc...
Eventually, the actually novel part of any new experience becomes vanishingly small. If anything, the ability to enjoy novelty, or to even see things as novel, is increased with our ability to forget. Maybe for a society, the ability to innovate relies on the ability to leave behind a bunch of brains whose plasticity has long been lost due to a lack of mental exercise.
You run out of those things shortly after birth. The vast majority of the aspects of everything that you attempt are familiar, and you have already developed habitual approaches to them. Having "never done something before" is shorthand for some experience having some aspect that you have never experienced before, not complete novelty. I'm going to build the strategies of flying a spaceship on the strategies I built learning to drive a car, which were built on the strategies I built learning to walk, which were built on the strategies I built learning to crawl, to manipulate my parents by crying, to identify distinct objects using my eyes, etc...
Eventually, the actually novel part of any new experience becomes vanishingly small. If anything, the ability to enjoy novelty, or to even see things as novel, is increased with our ability to forget. Maybe for a society, the ability to innovate relies on the ability to leave behind a bunch of brains whose plasticity has long been lost due to a lack of mental exercise.