I think the point is more that it’s very easy to go through life only thinking (reading) the thoughts of others, and never truly thinking for yourself. In our hyper-information age, I think this is an especially common practice. Why start from scratch when there are already so many starting points others have thought of? Why build an original LEGO design when there are so many premade ones? Etc.

https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEESchopenRead...