Every now and then, you come across some text in which the author expresses things which, deep down, you just know to be correct. You feel as if someone was saying what you always wanted to say; sometimes, it is written more elegantly than you could ever hope to acheive.

Such texts are slightly useful, because they allow you to discover what it is that you believe.

Every now and then, you come across some text in which the author expresses things which, deep down, you just know to be plain wrong. You feel forced to refute every single sentence, don't always manage to do so, and you feel uncomfortable when the author, following some apparently sensible line of reasoning, managed to reach conclusions which are undoubtedly complete nonsense.

Such texts are quite useful, because they allow you to discover what it is that you believe and why you believe it, and because they sometimes force you to question and eventually change those beliefs. They may make you different, in the sense that you can look at your former self and realize how wrong you were.

Every now and then, you come across some text in which the author expresses things which are just weird. The text is just puzzling, because it is written in an unexpected way, about some unexpected thing, with an unexpected angle, or for an unexpected purpose. It seems as if the author is either crazy or not living in the same universe as you.

Such texts are immensely useful, because they allow you to discover things and ways of thinking about things which you didn't even envision before. They allow you to discover the sheer diversity of human nature, and may suddenly and radically change your perspective about the world. They may make you different, in the sense that you can look at your former self and realize that, for some undefinable reason, you aren't the same person anymore.