(1) We each have to learn some things for ourselves. For example, we each have to learn what courage is, what friendship is. We can look those things up in a dictionary, but no dictionary could tell us what the friendly or courageous thing would be in a particular tough situation. These are things we have to discover.
(2) These discoveries often take the form of discovering a NEED in ourselves: We discover, for instance, what it is to be a friend when we discover that if we did the wrong thing, we would not be able to make sense of our relationship with someone anymore. We discover, that is, that we need the concept ‘friend’ in order to make sense of a particular relationship or action or situation.
(3) The realization that we have such need is typically an experience, a revelatory experience: more precisely, an aspect experience (in what I take to be Wittgenstein’s sense). It involves reality taking on a certain new shape—revealed to be significant in a new sort of way.
(4) In making these discoveries we discover ourselves: We discover that WE are in need of a certain concept; we discover that WE are in need of making sense of things—relationships, actions, situations…; we discover (we remember) that WE are vulnerable to ignorance about ourselves—about what we need.