Lots of people talk about "trying something new", and I'm all for that. But as a facet of that, I've found that making something old new again can be satisfying in the same way. Maybe it stems from the whole "You can never cross the same river twice" concept.
Examples:
- Reading definitions for words I think I already know. For instance, no two definitions for "object" have ever been penned quite the same, and reading them deepens my understanding.
- Thinking of an old acquaintance as a new friend. People are so fascinating. As soon as I think I've got someone pegged I realize I haven't even scratched the surface.
- Extreme specialization -- sometimes I take something excessively simple and determine to learn something new about it. Do you have any idea how many interesting things there that relate to, say, the character '!'?
- Reading an old book (possibly from my childhood) again. _Goodnight_Moon_ is so cool (one of the pages says "Goodnight nothing" at the bottom of a blank page. How abstract.)
- Or reading chapter of the Bible that I've long since taken for granted. The book of Jonah is incredibly deep when you realize it's not just about a guy getting swallowed by a whale.
...and so on.
I suppose a prerequisite to those examples is that you have to be able to enjoy discovery for discovery's sake. I also suppose that advocating "try something new" is really advocating such a mentality.
Anyhow... I think I've consumed my RDA of rambling, undirected chatter, so I'll leave it at that. =)
Try Something Old