Experience

"When analytical thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts. Mark Twain's experience come to mind, in which after he mastered the analytical knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts--something is always created too. And instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see the process as a kind of death-rebirth continuity that is neither good nor bad, but just is."

-Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance