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.

>>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.