The problem with reading is that there is good stuff and bad stuff and in-between stuff. Correction: the in-between stuff is not so much a problem because you tend to forget about it. The bad stuff is more of a problem because it makes you angry; bad stuff makes you never want to read again and only watch movies for the rest of your life because movies may be bad, too, but at least they’re only a couple of hours long.
The good stuff is worst of all because it makes people gooey and stirred, not unlike cocoa. Good stuff inspires people to write things of alleged beauty themselves–occasionally haiku, but more often epic poems, short stories, and novels. For example, someone writing during or prior to the middle of the 20th century is to blame for Anne Rice’s exercises in free association, which certain people insist on calling literature. Personally, I’d point fingers at Mikhail Bulgakov and especially Charles Brockden Brown. They’re both dead, but I’m sure someone somewhere is tormenting them for what they unleashed.
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