Using the Christmas break to catch up on a backlog of reading, and this passage on how reading inspires creativity (because innovative ideas are usually derivatives with enhancements) is the perfect reminder of why I should do this more often:
“When you read you might hear voices of the dead that make your hair stand on end, or that trigger in you a thought analogous to the founding thought and prompt you to write a response that grows from the times you live in, and differs from the earlier text simply because times and thinking and words have changed… You may see new things in the earlier text, and so give something back to it.”
Want to be more creative in the new year? Read more. Watch more. Listen more. Consume more. Because the greater the range of sources of inspiration you expose yourself to, the more varied and interesting your output.
Do “what the best poets do, trying to think *behind* the words… whether those words come from a newspaper, from an essay, from a hubbub on the street…”
A good new year’s resolution, that: Think *behind* the words.