Foucault recounts the ideas of the philosopher Seneca in his account of the Hupomnemata. Seneca stresses that one must balance between absorbing information and expressing one’s own thoughts, that is, reading and writing. He points out that one cannot possibly produce all information by himself.. He must reference other texts in order to adequately think himself and maintain a good relationship with himself. However, Seneca warns against the extreme opposite: writing too much. This phenomenon is called stultitia, and includes mental agitation, weakness, and a mind which is concerned too much with the future and is unable to fix itself in the present. Thus, one should aim to balance the amount of reading and writing one does in order to have the most beneficial relationship with oneself.
Balancing Reading and Writing
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I think this is perfectly applicable to the college situation. I think the balance between taking ideas and giving ideas is extremely hard to maintain in most settings in life, even when it comes to the classroom. As I’ve been a student for most of my life, I often see the obtaining of knowledge from the professor but it does not take anything learned and apply it further, requiring a student to create something of their own. I think there is more to be learned from creating something and pushing the mind past its original limits.