The power of learning

A few days ago, I stated that smart people read. Someone reacted by saying that reading can make you more informed, but not really more intelligent. I’ve been thinking about that comment the past few days. I think we underestimate the power of reading and learning from others. It doesn’t just give us new information. I believe the brain can literally begin to think in new ways, that we can learn new categories. It’s not so much gaining new information as much as expanding and literally changing the shape of our minds. Tim Sanders talks about how some people are headline thinkers. They can talk about the morning’s headlines in the paper, but haven’t read deeply or changed their ways of thinking in recent memory. When I’m exposed to deep thinkers who have not only accumulated information but added new categories of thought to their mind, as I was last week, I begin to realize the power of learning and thinking.