You could argue that symbols are all 'inherently meaningless' without breathing some life in them from your own needs and experiences. 'Fingerspitzengefuhl' [1] is one of my favourite words in German and I think gaining that kind of understanding is impossible if one spends all their time in letters and doing nothing of the stuff that necessitates writing them. I took the author to mean that endlessly reading without doing any living is somewhat of a dead existence. As the person they're replying to, that's what I got from it anyways.

I tend to intellectualise this way of looking at depression (and how to get out of it - how to just get out the damn house!) as related to the Symbol Grounding Problem [2], in a semi-serious, semi-metaphorical way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl [2] http://www.socphilinfo.org/node/100