Stop Reading and Go Do

Yesterday I was chatting to a person in the Etsy chatroom. And it became obvious that he's very enamored with new age self-help books. So he kept telling me, "You should go read this book and you should go read that book." I kept saying I already read that (most of them I read years ago). Finally I told him don't be a baby bird sitting in the nest all your life, go out and fly. He didn't understand what I meant at all. I meant that though reading can be a wonderful thing, it is no substitute for living your life. You come of an age where you need to switch roles and become the mentor and the teacher and the writer.
Case in point I asked him if he wanted to see my psycho telekinesis video where I'm doing fork bending. So he starts going on and on about Uri Geller and how he's a psychic who now works for the FBI. The other person in the room asked what we were talking about and he says, "She's talking about Uri Geller." And I said, "No, I'm talking about me and my fork bending video." Evidently I don't exist because I haven't written a book on it and I don't work for the FBI. Shrugs. I think we forget that authors are people too and while books are important, at some point we have to put them down and go apply the knowledge. Otherwise we become like the guy in the chatroom that has a booklist as long as his arm and no life experience.