[miles]

And, at a certain point, be on guard against too much reading, as Einstein warned[1]:

> Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.

[1] http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/sateve...

[pmoriarty]

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people are very far from having to worry about too much reading.

[briefcomment]

I don't think so, I think they just fall into the second category of "theatregoers" aka "streamers".

[watwut]

Nah. They do too much reading. Except it is on twitter and facebook.

[fogetti]

And stackoverflow and hacker news...

[thursday0987]

looking at hacker news is reading.

[powersnail]

Confucius also has a similar remark:

"Studying* without thinking leads to incomprehension; thinking without studying leads to peril."

However, I'd like to offer a counter-argument here.

There different ways of reading. Some are passive. Some are active. Reading with a critical mind is anything but detrimental to creativity.

Notably, great authors are often voracious readers, and reading is what they all agreed to be the foundations of their craft. It didn't hinder their creativity. The reason is two-folds: 1) they read critically; 2) they wrote.

The true way to foster creativity, is to create. Unless one read so much that no time is left to do anything else, reading isn't the enemy of creating.

And a further note on vicariously living one's life. I don't really see what's wrong with that. A person gets one life only, and it may be a fortunate one, a challenging one, a boring one, or one that's an absolute dismay. Drudging through the day and fantasizing through the night is hardly the worst form of life, in my opinion.

* "Studying" here refers to the intake of information.

[SuoDuanDao]

There's a very interesting TED talk in which someone talks about how to learn a skill to a decent level in 40 hours. He makes a similar point - that one should read a few books to learn what the key skills are, but not use reading as a procrastination-aide.

[mariodiana]

A brief write-up and a link to the TED talk may be found here:

https://ideas.ted.com/dont-have-10000-hours-to-learn-somethi...

[powersnail]

Learn a skill to a decent level in 40 hours is only possible if the skill is simple, for instance, playing a few chords on a ukulele.

I'd love to see someone learn the piano, the violin, or classical guitar. Or jazz improvisation. Or oil painting. Or ballet.

[gexla]

That's enough questions for Jerry. Anything which fits the "X your ass off" is probably bad advice unless you're running from something which is going to eat you.

[SparksZilla]

Thanks for sharing this. I love this quote, but I had not seen/heard it before.

I think about this a lot. The next edition actually addresses exactly this (in draft right now).

As I begin my career as a coach, one woman gave me some great advice: for every hour you read, spend at least an hour coaching. The experience matters—get your nose out of a book.

I struggle with how to balance these!

[qntty]

Also a little ironic that he suggests reading about a school of thought (zen) that famously talked about how useless reading is.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

That's an incredible quote that should be plastered over every single news posting on reddit and Facebook. Maybe people would realize reading about politics is completely a waste of time.

[phobosanomaly]

It's like watching the Hindenburg.

Sure, it's a waste of time, but are you not going to watch the Hindenburg?

[malwrar]

There’s been too much news lately covered w/ Hindendenburg-esque severity, at some point being a spectator to this many burning airships is just exhausting :P

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

That's how I felt about every "big" thing that was going to remove trump from office. Then nothing happened and reddit would backpedal. Soon enough it just became the little boy who cried wolf.

[phobosanomaly]

Well, his efforts to secure preemptive pardons for himself, his family, and his legal team do indicate that he is aware he has done some stuff that might be frowned upon in court once he's out of office.

[phobosanomaly]

Tell me about it. This year has just drained my soul out of my eye sockets.

[zmodem]

Thanks for sharing! That whole article is wonderful.

[runawaybottle]

As others mentioned already, just replace Reading with Social Media in that quote for 2020 and you’ll get nothing but the truth.

[cambalache]

OK, but then the interview continues>

" In his own field of thought Einstein follows every development with keen interest"