Is there enough content on Earth? Enough music? Enough movies? Enough books? What does “enough” even look like?

Perhaps one can restrict the problem to its relevance to writing: if one writes, then what is the ideal amount of preparatory reading?1 Is any even necessary?

After all, books originally come from somewhere. They are perhaps just as likely to come from the unexpected combination of a novel and and academic paper as from a tumultuous family history.

Any and all stimuli may inspire a human to write: consider poetry.

Love: a burnt match skating in a urinal.

Hart Crane

The greatest part of one’s surface area is exposed to the mundane: it follows that if all subjects are equal (if this book may provide as much inspiration as this burnt match), then one is most likely to be struck by inspiration while doing something mundane.

Does this describe the experience of good authors?2 Yes, it does.

Case study: Gwern

Gwern describes where his ideas come from, claiming they are mostly born from frustration that this obvious, low-hanging fruit hasn’t been picked yet!

Shaking one’s fist at the inadequacy of civilization and writing an opus to correct in a convulsive fit of rage is a common and endorsed method of inspiration.3 Gwern2011 cites:

Are you sure it was inspiration?

And, as “training data”, in the sense that to read means expanding your general vocabulary, understanding pacing, and who knows what else.

Few of these ideas bubble up to the surface and pop through the membrane between my mind and Earth; but some do, and this essay is one such instance.