Everyone is a universe, and everyone’s nature contains creativity endowed by nature. Applying this point of view to reading, Emerson advocates a “creative reading”.
This is: treat one’s own life as the main text and the books as annotations; listen to other people’s speech to enable oneself to speak; with an active soul, read for inspiration.
Almost all creative thinkers are instinctively wary of books. Montaigne once talked about “Wen Shang”, that is, being chopped by the axe of words due to too much reading and losing creativity.
Schopenhauer used excessive reading as an example of turning his mind into a racetrack for others.
Emerson also said: “I would rather never see a book than be distorted by its suction and pull me completely out of my orbit, making me a satellite rather than a universe.”
Many people eagerly ask how to read, but how to read actually depends on the attitude of the whole life. Unwinding is good or it can be harmful. The geniuses of the past can become stars in their own universe, or they can become idols that suppress themselves.
Emerson wrote playfully: “The meek young people grew up in the library. They believed that their responsibility was to accept the opinions of Cicero, Locke, and Bacon; they forgot that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon wrote these. When they were reading books, they were just young people in the library.” I want to add: Fortunately, the library collection was much less than now, otherwise they might not be Cicero, Locke, and Bacon.
Good books are friends, but only friends. Meeting with friends is a pleasure, but you must have something to say to be truly happy. A dull person, no matter how wise a friend is, is useless to him. Sitting among a group of talented friends is nothing but a puppet, a satire, and a torture.
Everyone is a god, and then there will be the reunion of Olympus God Realm.
When we read a book, when we read the wonderful place, we often cannot help shouting: This is my thought, this is what I want to say, it was stolen by him! Sometimes it is really difficult to distinguish which is the author’s original intention, which is his own mixing and addition.
The feeling of sleep was awakened, the lost memory was recovered, and the hazy thoughts became clear. Everything else is just dead “knowledge”, that is to say, just inorganic matter outside the organic growth process of the soul.
I once calculated that I would read one book every day for the best of my life, and I would never finish reading my own collection. What’s more, new books are constantly being purchased, not to mention there are countless books in the library. This is really desperate. However, when the impulse to write came up, all this was forgotten. Emerson put it beautifully: “When a person can directly read God, that time is too precious to be wasted on the manuscripts after others have read it.”
As long as you have a strong desire for creativity, you have no time to read books written by others. Maybe it is a kind of luck.
Everyone is a universe
