Every second of our day we are seeing things. There is a lot of visual information entering our heads all the time and our minds keep very busy processing that information. Indeed our minds never stop processing; it is active all day and all night.
With photography however, you are only seeing when you slow or stop the mind from processing and allow the image before you speak. Its like going out for a beer with friends and one of those friends cannot stop talking. You might say something, and then a second later this friend has taken your thought and is running with it and talking all sorts of gibberish. Thankfully, perhaps unlike the friend, we can stop our minds and allow the image to speak. I think that is when we develop a connection with what we see and the photograph that we take of that image fully expresses that connection.