you treat this very questions page as a piece of art (which is to say, you make it exactly like you like it, exercising artistic judgement in its very existence, creating something truly beautiful and worth paying attention to) and the page's existence is entirely dependent on others -- harnessing their curiosity. I think you're just being defeatist to rule out all collaboration when you have demonstrated on some level that it is within your grasp.
perhaps some of the people you call defeatist have actually tried many times, and many ways, while you weren't watching