How do you know if you're being respectful to a culture you don't know?

> Constant studying is the key, don’t you think? “Walk softly and carry a big book”

If the Buddha thought books were the key, he would have left scripture.

Also, if you meet the Buddha, kill him.

I'm not buddhist by the way. I'm repeating old sayings that I believe are less prone to being charlatanized.

I have a limited life. There's only so many books I can read. Why should I guide my attention using a random substack post?

Perhaps you have good intentions, but some people don't. Overselling material is typical of charlatans ("you should read more, and go through me to interpret it").

I'm just providing a general skeptical counterpoint to the idea that reading a lot is always good. Many have done that before me (Buddha, Schopenhauer, etc).

It is kind of ironical that I'm name dropping old thinkers here, and providing my interpretation on how to read it. There's no way out of this paradox.

I stated my intentions from the very beginning, I'm not challenging the wisdom, I'm challenging potentially charlatan ways of applying it. If you're not doing that, there's no reason to get offended.

Also, there was no reason to erase your posts. Now people will never know if you were being playful and agreeable or not.

So am I. Mine is designed to discourage people from trusting charlatans. I said it from the very beginning, quite honestly.

I don't need to be right, and people don't need to follow my example. They just need to think "wait, why am I reading this thing? why does it feel compelling? am I being tricked?".

Maybe you're not used to skepticism in your life, and you usually get the things you want by putting up a show. That's actually not bad, but I'm not going to apologize for attempting to increase awareness of how charlatans work.