Ah, my similar thought is: you can’t possibly consume all the must-consume classics/seminal works in a genre before trying to produce yourself because there’s too much, and you have to do a degree of subversive reinvention and repeat mistakes of the past
Reminds me of reading at different levels (per Mortimer Adler) & I think applies to any medium. E.g. you can apprehend aspects of a director's talents & deficiencies w/o watching their entire oeuvre…but may want to watch certain scenes very closely etc.
8. We should all be more aware of (& deliberately apply) the many different levels of reading that exist — the spectrum from close reading to skimming a book quickly for major themes / ideas.
Different books + different contexts demand different approaches for optimal reading.