This post is interesting to me on many levels. I came upon his general idea of not trying to only understand the big picture, but also learn the implications a

This post is interesting to me on many levels. I came upon his general idea of not trying to only understand the big picture, but also learn the implications and details of the matter at hand on my own. The reason I say 'on my own' is because I believe reading it in a book helps systematize and possibly take more out of it. Now, this was a few years ago, and I remember thinking about this a lot. For me, it was like I was more conscious of my entire world and I felt more conscious of everything and more responsible for my actions. This drove me to act in a more practical manner. I remember a friend told me, 'You sound more grounded in reality now' (I wanted to change the literary world before and, thus, be one of the best writers of the 20th century--yes, very humble). Now, some might say this preface is just an excuse to get to my main point, while others will understand the relationship between what I wrote above with what I will say now. Kafka once said that every metaphor is meaningless (one of his paradoxes, since he only spoke in metaphor). Now, a metaphor is a type of analogy. And the OP says that 'reasoning by analogy is notoriously unreliable'. He says this in passing, but it stuck with me. The more I practice a "detailed analysis" or "detailed reading" of things and truly absorb what I read and become conscious of my life, the more it teaches me about other parts of my life. Sometimes I speak to someone and think about another, completely different conversation and think, 'Oh, that's what he meant', by simply talking to another person about something completely different. Other, seemingly unrelated ideas, help me understand other, seemingly unrelated, ideas. The things I don't understand I place in a particular part of my brain or in a particular 'thought spot' for later use. I do this consciously. And as I go about my life, I go back to them when I collect a piece of information that helps me better understand it. Anyway, there is slightly more to it, but I'll keep this short. Plus, this isn't the ideal place to explain all of it, but I wanted to share this idea with everyone. Great post.