Learning, thinking, and writing should not be about accumulating knowledge, but about becoming a different person with a different way of thinking. This is done by questioning one’s own thinking routines in light of new experiences and facts.
The real enemy of independent thinking is not an external authority, but our own inertia. The ability to generate new ideas has more to do with breaking with old habits of thinking than with coming up with as many ideas as possible.
The most important advantage of writing is that it helps us confront ourselves when we do not understand something as well as we would like to believe.
