The smartest people I know are voracious readers. They don’t necessarily read to find new information. They are looking for new perspectives. Or a new way of thinking about something they are already familiar with. But even if you develop new perspectives by reading, all of them lie in limbo inside your head. Writing them down brings them together, and suddenly you start to see how some of them fit together, while some don’t. You are suddenly faced with the challenge of bringing them together so that you don’t start contradicting yourself. You often meet deadends when you start writing. There are moments of panic when you cannot piece something together. Then you have to start all over again. Writing is rewriting.