Can reading really do harm?

 A footnote on yesterday’s note on allowing an idea to incubate:

Graham Wallas thought that the greatest danger might be the habit of passively reading. Instead of letting the mind rest, we engage it on someone else’s work.

Wallas quotes Schopenhauer’s statement that “to put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is the sin against the Holy Ghost.”

Einstein had a similar notion: “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.” 

I can’t believe any of this.

Reading can be mindless recreation. Wittgenstein famously turned to detective stories when he tired of logic. But Wallas’s whole point about an original idea requiring a period of incubation is that we can’t reason nonstop. At some point, we need to stop straining to reason and rest. When we do, the brain can and does continue to work in ways we’re not aware of.

Letting it work that way is not a waste of time.