No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Understanding cannot be installed in you from outside. What a good teacher, book or friend does is wake something already forming, which is why real insight arrives with a sense of recognition rather than surprise. You had the material; somebody put a word to it at the right moment.

That is why the same advice bounces off for years and then lands. If something is not going in, you may not be ready rather than incapable, and pushing harder rarely helps. And when you want to help somebody else, ask more than you tell, since what you are after is whatever is already half-awake in them.