Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, __ook at my beautiful home! Isn__ it fine?_ And not, __ook at the home so-and-so has built._ Thus we shouldn__ cry, __ook what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!_ But rather, __ook at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?
So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, __iterary reading and thinking_? I would argue this is a person who__ trying to see things for what they are. Who__ interested in distinguishing the truth from the lies, the real from the fake, the solid from the cheap. Those are the people who want to think for themselves, and I really question whether we can make good lives for ourselves if we aren__ doing our own thinking.
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So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, __iterary reading and thinking_? I would argue this is a person who__ trying to see things for what they are. Who__ interested in distinguishing the truth from the lies, the real from the fake, the solid from the cheap. Those are the people who want to think for themselves, and I really question whether we can make good lives for ourselves if we aren__ doing our own thinking.
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