There is Then Creative Reading as well as Creative Writing

"Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. Must that needs be evil? We, it seems, are critical; we are embarrassed with second thoughts; we cannot enjoy any thing for hankering to know whereof the pleasure consists; we are lined with eyes; we see with our feet; the time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness, — 

"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary class, as a mere announcement of the fact, that they find themselves not in the state of mind of their fathers, and regret the coming state as untried; as a boy dreads the water before he has learned that he can swim. If there is any period one would desire to be born in, — is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

Emerson, Ralph. "The American Scholar" In Nature; Addresses and Lectures. 1849. Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts. http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (accessed January 11, 2015)

Emerson gave this speech on his Trancendentalistic ideal for America to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837. American society at the time had been stuck in European ideas even though the country had been independent for a while it was difficult for citizens to figure out what defines America. The country isn't moving forward because everyone is hung up on the great things of the past and tries, instead of using them as inspiration, to recreate something which has already been done. Emerson also recognizes the growing separations between people in the United States, he believes that if each person can focus on their self and find their power they would be able to connect to each other. Everyone is a part of the whole but each piece needs to trust itself in order to work together. 

It's pretty long and complex but it's really worth reading the whole thing The American Scholar