Reading yourself Stupid

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts.

So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid. For to occupy every spare moment in reading, and to do nothing but read, is even more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual labor, which at least allows those engaged in it to follow their own thoughts. A spring never free from the pressure of some foreign body at last loses its elasticity; and so does the mind if other people’s thoughts are constantly forced upon it. Just as you can ruin the stomach and impair the whole body by taking too much nourishment, so you can overfill and choke the mind by feeding it too much. The more you read, the fewer are the traces left by what you have read: the mind becomes like a tablet crossed over and over with writing. There is no time for ruminating, and in no other way can you assimilate what you have read. If you read on and on without setting your own thoughts to work, what you have read can not strike root, and is generally lost. It is, in fact, just the same with mental as with bodily food: hardly the fifth part of what one takes is assimilated. The rest passes off in evaporation, respiration and the like.

I write as if I were living in the nineteenth century. It feels quite erudite, if I may say so, and carries a certain air of reliability. I recommend it to many of those stuck in the spinning wheels of mechanical twenty-first century life.

>>1
Shut up, Schopenhauer. I don't wanna think like you.

>>2
Cool story bro.

nigga you crazy

nobody actually reads themself stupid. have you ever seen anybody who was intelligent, but then read a bunch of books and became less intelligent?

/retarded thread

>>2
I write like I was living in modern times. It feels hella retarded, let me tell you, and carries an air of lowered cultural and intellectual standards. Yet in order not to be a faggot, I recommend it to a lot of those stuck in the bleak soot-belching Dickensian wastelands of 19th century life.

>>4
http://boards.4chan.org/b/

You fools in here going on about how you "lower" yourselves and write in the common tongue sound like huge pretentious faggots. There's nothing vulgar about writing in common language, art is mostly in the meaning, not the words.

There is more to life than Marcel Proust and fine wines, you wannabe intellectuals.

>>5
this.

>>8
maybe, but writing in the common language takes as much skill as writing with "big words" not everyone can pull off hemingway.

Active > passive

>>10
not always

>>10
Wut. Enjoy your awkward relative clauses.

The question is, did I get smarter or dumber reading >>1?

>>9

"As much skill" you say? You're demented. You also don't seem to realize that everyday speech is impoverished not only of the "big" words that you scorn, but also of any word that is precise and meaningful. Everyday speakers have tiny little thoughts that don't require precision and nuance. It's unsuitable for serious writing because it is used and defined by a majority that doesn't even care about a language's ability to enlighten, only the ability to tell others the crude impulses running in their heads.

Take "a lot" for example. Common speakers love this word because it replaces so many other English words that they can't use dextrously enough: "many", "much", "often", "constantly", "frequently" and the list of displaced adjectives and adverbs goes on. Why think carefully about the word which conveys the most vivid meaning? Just belch out the word "a lot." These alternatives aren't even big words, but they are *precise* words, like scalpels, rather than the unsophisticated "a lot" that bludgeons its meaning messily.

Why read a book written by authors who couldn't be bothered to think about the proper word choices? You might as well have a convesation with a McDonald's employee, if you enjoy books that sound like everyday speech. Maybe that's all you can handle, anyway.

>>14
It would take a skillful writer to write anything interesting or even amusing in the common tongue. In a way, it is the perfect way to make a statement about our time.

>>14

I don't scorn "big" words. I just know when to use them, which is almost never.

And it depends on what you're talking about. If you need to use the word "many", use it. If you need to use the phrase "a lot", use that. Writing an entire book in 19th century style just to make somebody learn something is retarded, you might as well write a textbook. Novels are primarily entertainment.

Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" is a perfect example of using shit language to convey a deeply heartfelt and enlightening story, it's even critically acclaimed by literary snobs and it won a Pulitzer.

>>16

You say to use "a lot" in its proper context... It has no proper context, because its a lazy catch-all to blot out the need for more precision. Didn't you comprehend anything? It takes the place of words expressing very different concepts of frequency of time, continuity in time, quantity, wholeness, etc. Used responsibly, it might be trotted out every so often to avoid repeated use of a better alternative, but it in itself has no special context that cries out for its use.

Oh, and cute argument there, using a book that relies heavily on Irish idiom to establish its authentic regionalism is pretty retarded, when we were speaking of mainstream English.

Nice grammar mistakes, too, champ.

>>15

>nice grammar mistakes

Stating your opinions as objective facts, trying to be pithy and failing, and taking yourself way too seriously.

newsflash: writers write what they want and don't give a shit about grammar

another newsflash: I'm being inconsistent with the capitalization and punctuation in this post because I that's how I roll

This all just boils down to literary vs. commercial. People like you will continue to be narrow minded, boring people who usually sell no books and don't "get it", while authors of popular fiction who understand the aspects of modern culture relevant to literature will continue to make millions of dollars and have a good time.

These days, literary fiction caters to a small, pretentious section of the population and is no longer a good reflection of societal issues. You're better off reading some failtard fantasy series like Twilight if you want to really know what life was like in 2008, I know I'd rather endure anything Stephanie Meyer shits out than read a paragraph of Dostoevsky.

>>17
So you think that the most precise word possible must be used at all times? You must only read novels in the original lojban.

Reading yourself stupid? How about reading yourself pretentious.

>>20

Is what really happens.

>>1
All in all, you're simply wrong.
Aothor of the book supplies you with sensory input emulation, not thinking process emulation. Unless it's a textbook.

>>22
what if only meant textbooks?

OP fails to understand the sum of all human knowledge is recorded and read through books or similar literary media.