Art is just a bunch of lines.

I remember reading somewhere that an artist could spend their whole life drawing a single line, and it is after they master that line that they can truly create something dazzling and unique. I think that holds a lot of truth. Art after all is just an array of lines of varying lengths, angles, and colors. Its up to the artist to use geometric and photonic(this might be a made of word) properties to give an image meaning.

I believe this theory is consistent with other forms of expression as well. Take music for example. You can call it a tone or a note or a sound but when you string them all together something inspiring happens. Anyone can play a song to a specific beat but the truly amazing musicians are then ones that can play a song in and out of a metronome but are seemingly always on perfect time...more on this later, time for class.

Literary terms are overrated

Reading is generally mindless. It cleverly replaces your thoughts with ones that are more intelligent and articulate than your own. I believe this is the best way to exercise your mind, by stringing together a continuous stream of ideas that would otherwise be too elaborate and prospicient for you to create on the fly. I've realized, that while reading, my only original thoughts might consist of an "oh wow!" or an "I'm confused and need to re-read that." But at the end of a long hard fought concious mind replacing read I do feel more intelligent. My thoughts as well as my speech become more fluid.
Despite of this, I do sense a few dangers in reading. In a way, the Author is imposing his mind on yours, breaking you open and inserting himself into your subconscious. I can imagine that if all you read was Poe, you would begin to feel slightly deranged.

So now the issue becomes; which authors will I allow into my head? Will I read books by authors that share a similar sentient mind? Or will I challenge my brain into syncing with an author that has an inverse mind to my own? As far as that goes, I have no idea...I'm confused and need to re-think this.