Writing and perceiving are both exploratory activities. From infancy, we look, listen, touch, smell, and taste the world to discover what it is and what it means to us.
Both writing and perceiving are processes of making meaning. In the process of sensory perception, we make meaning of our sensory inputs. We do not simply see, hear, taste, touch, or smell things "as they are." Neither do we receive a flood of raw data out of which we then arbitrarily construct our world.
Instead, our senses receive information about the world which we then interpret, understand, grasp. (J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems). Perception is an active process, not a passive process (Ulric Neisser). Our sensory explorations are guided by schemata--images of what things are like.
Our perceptions and our schemata influence and shape each other in a cycle of feedback and change.
Writing is also an active process in which our instrument of exploration is language, rather than the five physical senses.