I am a firm believer in the acquisition of empirical knowledge over propositional knowledge.
Real life over book learning.
This is not to say that learning from books has no value rather that it should be part of the whole learning and life experience.
For me to tell you that you can “only live your life but you can read someone else’s” is actually disingenuous. Case in point, anyone who read Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” back when it came out in 2003, found out later that they had read a total lie.
To achieve what Kierkgaard referred to as Erfahrung, we need to get out and get face to face with the world around us, that, in order to understand the diverse and multi-faceted nature of the world, of humanity and of the human condition, we need to get out and meet it and talk to it, to recognize and immerse ourselves in the experiential nature of human epistemology. You simply can’t select a book by a “diverse” author and think you will comprehend their experience, their life.
You may acquire some insight by doing so, but to think you’ve found some sort of touchstone of diversity and, thereby an enlightened perspective is fantasy.
This is not to say I am discouraging people from reading as much as they can, on the contrary.
I think you should read as much as you can when you are not out exploring both near and far, meeting all the many people who may or may not look or think like you and having simple conversations.
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