Maybe I would like the thousands of feeds equilibrium, but it ain't the one I'm in. In any case, I'm not sure it's discipline that's keeping me here [with only 36 feeds in Google Reader].
The reality is I actually find reading to be less rewarding than pursuing my interests in a (relative) vacuum. That's driven by the facts that:
a) I'm a slow reader, so not so many benefits to reading per minute
b) I really enjoy the personal feeling of discovery that comes from thinking through an issue with relatively little help
c) the sorts of things I like to think about actually _are_ truths that do not require external verification, i.e. I can know they are true without having to go look up the consensus of the field.
Reading informs me, and certainly that's a sensible reason to do it, but in honesty I mostly do it because it gives me things to think about. (Like what feynman said, that physics is like sex: sure there's a plenty good reason to do it, but that's not why we do it!). And I find that for whatever reason, it takes relatively little reading to give me enough to think about.
So in Xan's view, reading is mostly useful not as much for transferring thought as for prompting it. I find that really interesting, especially since I have long struggled with the question of what is the optimal ratio of reading to writing/thinking. I have gone in swings from about 5 hours of reading for every hour of writing, to, some weeks, 2 hours of writing for every hour of reading. I have not settled at any particular ratio, and I am still trying to discover what exactly are the benefits (and costs?) of each.
