My approach to wine mirrors my approach to ideas.
Every wine experience produces a mental pattern—the label, the feel of the bottle, the color, the smell, the taste. These elements dance with you, and some wines overtake you to produce moments of clarity that are longer lasting than the taste on your tongue.
Great wines reliably and consistently bring about a neuronal pattern that can last forever. But the experiential quality of these wines is based on the structure built prior, which comes from tasting as many wines as possible, even those deemed bad or inferior.
Just as with wine, experiencing great ideas requires full exploration. If you only drink the wines you enjoy, you’re denying yourself the grander experience later. If you only interact with acceptable ideas, you are denying yourself grander insight later.