Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now.
Since I realized this, I am more meticulous when choosing what I do and don't do, there is no going back.
I actually realized recently that this is probably the underlying phenomenon behind "how is my phone listening to my conversations to show me ads/articles?"
The other day I was thinking about LLM aggregation and in my internal dialogue used the example of "aliens built the pyramids" as a fringe theory that would be picked up on if tuning for other associated fringe positions by LLMs at places like Gab.
Later in the day I saw in my news feed an article on "how were the pyramids built?" (One of my interests is Egyptian and LBA Mediterranean archeology, so on topic.)
At first I thought "how the heck did it read my mind?"
But then as I thought about it more I remembered that usually my go to example of a fringe position is flat earth. So why was I suddenly using pyramids as the example in my internal dialogue.
What must have happened was that I initially saw the article headline in my feed in passing and didn't consciously register it, but when I was reaching for a fringe position example had been primed for that, and then only after having consciously been reflecting on the topic actually noticed the article in my feed.
Which IMO is a much more alarming explanation for the phenomenon - that my thinking was being written to a degree by my feed - than that my phone was somehow listening in on things or reading my mind.
It reminds me of a graffiti artist in NYC who used to write graffiti about how in reading it he had effectively graffitied your mind.
This is why your attention is so insanely valuable. Everyone thinks they're immune to advertising, yet people keep paying billions and billions of dollars to show something on your screen for a few seconds... because like it or not, it works.
Sometimes I play Rocket League, where I'm intensely focused on the playing field and not paying attention to anything else. I'll have some random song or phrase in my head the whole match, just there in the background. And then there will be a pause in the action, and I'll for (what I thought was) the first time, look at the names of the other players long enough to actually read them, and there it is: one of them has a name that prompted that song or that thought in my head. I had no idea. I thought I was 100% focused on the action in the game, but those names influenced me anyway.
>I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
I heard those quote for the first time about 4 years ago. I had often been a bit disappointed with myself for not taking more notes while reading, or reviewing what I read in a way where I could be one of those people to bring up quotes and concepts, citing back to the original source, with freakish accuracy. This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective, even if I can’t cite all the sources that built my perspective on a topic.
Reminds me of an old Arab tale (paraphrased, from memory, translated):
Once upon a time a man wanted to be handed the title of a poet, so he went to the king of poets at his time, and asked him to give him the title of a poet. The king of poets asked the man, "Do you memorize tens of thousands of the best poetry?", the man said "I do not", the king of poems asked of him: "go memorize them then come back to me". The man went to a faraway isolated monastary, spend a couple of years memorizing the poems, then came back to the king of poets shouting in excitement "I've memorized the tens of thousands of poems! Can you hand me the title of a poet now?". The king of poets asked of him "Now forget them".
Only after years again spent in the monastery forgetting the poems, was the man given the title of a poet.
(Side note: this story also kinda remind me of LLMs, and how they kind of "memorize" text initially but the more data is poured in the more they "forget" the exact texts)
A corollary of this idea that also the bad stuff that you read leaves a trace, and not necessarily a good trace. To continue the food metaphor: like junk food there is junk reading and while it may satisfy some need it is all informational empty calories and transfats. Which brings up a subject I pondered many times: to go on an information diet. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.
Since the "good" stuff can also leave a bad trace, and there is nothing to measure (remember, it's there even if you don't remember it), how would you approach the diet composition?
one of the most popular things in modern society,'modern music' (whatever that means)is not different from 'junk food'.. 'Modern music' is to your brain what junk food is to your body! Modern music with its repetitive beats optimized to give you a brief 'dopamine' have a similar effect on your brain as junk food does on your body!! in the same way that junk food provides a quick burst of pleasure but lacks nutritional value, modern music offers instant gratification through repetitive beats and catchy melodies while offering little to no informational value to the brain . .... "junk food", "short videos", "porn" and "modern music" these things are all designed to give you a brief dopamine rush ;)
Is this actually true? I know the text sounds really nice. Also citing nicely crafted words from famous poeple helps.
I guess roughly, this is right. But there's more to add. I have a brain with a certain configuration. This configuration is partly genetic and partly environmental. The environmental part has been shaped by every sensory input so far, including all the books. However, some books resonate well. They make me think about the topic weeks after finishing them. Other books don't resonate at all. My brain's is not fit for them. It just ja sequence of words (e.g., the books my high school literature teacher made me read).
I guess humans aren't a ANN that treats every training sample equal. Our brain has a mechanism to put more or less weight on sensory input given previous input. Some ideas are utterly confusing and don't stick at all. I think this happens a lot when people of different religions or political camps interact.
I think everything you're saying is correct, but doesn't discredit what the post says. I think even books we don't necessarily resonate strongly with can have small, hidden impacts on our behaviour and thinking. They might give us an example of what a person does in a certain situation, and we internalise how we might respond in a certain situation. In this I think it is kind of similar to an LLM, where we kind of predict what our response to something should be, drawing from our past experiences on an abstract level.
I think books we do resonate with can have a larger impact for the reasons you mentioned, but I think they all have an impact.
I like to think of books as planets, and you're a spaceship. If you're not paying attention, as you graze a planet it'll slightly alter your course. Maybe in perceptibly so. If you are aware of it and resonate with it, you can kind of use its gravity to swing you into a different direct -- presumably onto a direction you want to go in.
One form this takes is that, even when you forget the details, you retain the general shape of the subject matter. You might not remember all the details about XYZ, but now at least you know XYZ exists: your internal map of the world is expanded and corrected, even if parts are a bit fuzzy.
Well put! This is exactly why i tell people to always get a book on any subject that catches their fancy and browse them at the very least. Many parts will be fuzzy if you are not using/working with them but that is no excuse for not knowing about them. Once the mind is exposed to various concepts/ideas it automagically stitches them into a coherent whole without you being conscious of it.
A good way to think about it is the description of Mycroft Holmes by Sherlock Holmes;
"The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant."
There's a trick when reading nonfiction: read the table of contents, then flip ahead and read the entire index. You now have a good understanding of what topics the book covers, and where in the book they are. You can crank through a stack of 10 or 20 books and get a good sense of which ones are really worth reading. 'Half of all knowledge is simply knowing where to find the knowledge.'
> the goal of a book isn’t to get to the last page, it’s to expand your thinking.
I would apply this to fiction books too. Some people consider reading fiction books a waste of time.
But fiction books too can expand your mind by exploring ideas that may not be possible in non-fiction books or exploring the same ideas but in a way that non-fiction books cannot achieve easily or at all.
As a kid, when I asked an uncle why he was always reading, he said "we read to know we are not alone". I don't know if he was quoting someone else, but I took it to mean that there are things that we think privately and don't share in any other medium but fiction. Not in conversation, film, etc.
We've all had that moment when reading fiction where we instantly recognise something and think to ourselves, 'huh, so I'm not the only one!'
For this reason, I think that fiction is an invaluable aspect of human communication.
I exclusively read nonfiction until I had a traumatic event happen to me. After that, I read fiction nonstop for several years. Fiction was the only thing that could help me process it. (Note: not escape the trauma, but help me process it. Nonfiction was too clean, black-and-white, etc. Too simple. Fiction presented a world of uncertainty and doubt that I could live through and thus reflect upon the traumas I had undergone.)
Do people really consider reading fiction a waste of time? I’d love to meet someone who says reading Mark Twain or Toni Morrison or Vladimir Nabokov is a waste of time. Actually … I don’t think I’d like to meet that person.
There are definitely some forms of fiction that are less enlightening than others, but even the “lowest” forms are generally time better spent than scrolling the internet or watching random TV channels.
One approach I like is to relax and read the book quickly the first time, don’t take notes or anything. If it’s good, read it again (and again periodically). If not, don’t.
This gives natural spaced repetition on the good stuff, and also you pick up different things in subsequent readings.
This is close to what I do sometimes (and I should be more disciplined about doing it all the time, TBH). I'll often read a non-fiction book once, at a leisurely pace, no notes or anything. Maybe I'll stick a few page flags in to highlight things that really stand out to me. Later, if I deem it worthwhile, I'l re-read the book and take notes. After that, I'll re-read my notes and try to consolidate my thinking and distill out the most important elements into a separate notes document. And on rare occasions, I may later re-read the original book a third time and refine my notes even further. If I'm reading a group of books on a related topic, I may open a new document and then read/re-read my earlier notes on each book, and put the synthesis into the new doc.
The biggest problem with all of this is simply that it's very time consuming. But when doing a pointed, intentional "deep dive" into something specific, I've found it to be effective.
This is a great way to frame a shift in perspective around what we consume, but just to add some nuance to this: not only should we be thoughtful about the content we consume in a similar way that we are thoughtful about the food we consume, but we should also be self compassionate.
Sometimes we want to eat those Chicken 'n' Waffles, just like sometimes we go on a trashy TV show binge! It's just a small thing that serves as a comforting release, and we shouldn't let the guilt overcome us!
Even "comfort food" (or the equivalent) can expand and exercise your thought.
I read a ton of what even I consider "fluff". Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, adventure, horror. Novels that get unceremoniously lumped under "genre fare".
But even if the primary motivation is entertainment, I can honestly say that from a young age, reading lots of anything exposed me to new ideas, ways of thinking, and perspectives.
Even something as simple as spelling and vocabulary seem to come a lot easier, if only due to having seen so many words written out over time. I remember being a kid and never really having issues with spelling or knowing most words because I'd at least run across them already.
That's not to say reading more "serious" material is useless. It just isn't an either/or question.
This is relevant not only in the context of books and blogs, but also for the shorter forms of reading that we do more often like HN or Reddit comments, tweets etc.
One way to think about it is that reading on the internet, no matter how casual, is like scattering seeds on the soil of your mind. Some of these seeds will grow into trees and influence your actions and decisions, whether you're aware of it or not.
Nowadays, I'm re-reading books that left a mark on me.
It's not uncommon to discover that some clever ideas I thought I came up with have been, in fact, read in a book. Humbling.
The thing is, you cannot get to that point by following productivity hacks. It's true that most divulgation books can we summarized in 2 pages. But the way good authors present the same idea again and again, through different examples and viewpoints is what remains in your brain.
I love reading as much as anyone, and probably finish on average, 100 books a year, but - I’ve gradually become skeptical of the idea that books are an ideal format for acquiring and retaining knowledge. I’ve written a few little comments about this in the past [1] but I’ve been meaning to explore the idea further. I originally began thinking this when I realized I could only remember a handful of details from books I had spent hours reading.
The short version is this: there’s nothing inherent about the format of a book that makes it ideal for learning. It is mostly a historical consequence of the fact that scratching symbols onto stone or paper, then replicating that paper/stone is easier to develop than recording and playing back audio or video. Human beings spent thousands of years using languages that were purely spoken ones, and writing is a fairly recent thing historically speaking.
If somehow it became possible to record and play back spoken language thousands of years ago, writing might have never become a widespread thing at all. Even today, speech is how the vast majority of the world uses language. Let’s not forget how influential the book form has been on thought, from the Bible to the Quran, etc.
And so if you brush away the mystique and legacy of books and think about what an ideal learning format would be, I think it would be quite different from a book. Probably it would incorporate audiovisuals, spaced repetition, and some form of storytelling.
All of this is about reading for information, not for pleasure. But I don’t primarily read fiction for information in the first place.
I find that I learn more from books than any other medium. I think it's because of the process of writing a book. It takes extreme dedication, passion, and a deep knowledge of the subject. Most books I've read have been reviewed by multiple experts and their content is presented in a structured and comprehensive way. Authors spend a significant chunk of their life writing a handful of books, many books you read are someone's greatest life achievement.
If the same amount of time and care were put into, say a YouTube video, I'd prefer the video. But that's very rare. My reading is 100% informational however, so I am biased in that regard.
I agree with you, maybe books are not the ideal format for acquiring knowledge.
I read a lot of fiction books, mainly classics for pleasure. And what I found unique is that only in books I have access to the interior monologue of the characters, their thoughts, and on some occasions, direct access to their "stream of consciousness".
I love it, and I discovered that some characters (but in reality it's the authors) have a similar process of thought, and some others do not, and notice and sense things differently ...
Do you rather read a tutorial or watch a YouTube video?
Personally, I find reading is a much more interactive activity. You can seek, you can skip, you can summarize, you can repeat. Innoway, it is much closer and deeper than a conversation with another person. And definitely much closer than a video audio recording of that person, which is more like a speech than a conversation.
This is why blocking and muting (especially "mute words") are essential on social media. You have to be intentional about the diet of language you feed your brain, just as you have to be intentional about the diet of food you feed your stomach.
I thought for the longest time I could tune it all out, that I was calloused. It's only in hindsight that I see how much of the toxicity I willingly looked at deeply affected me. Mostly because I started believing that everybody was like the worst, loudest people on the internet and believed what they did.
One thing here that I disagree with is that there is a major difference between things that you know cold and things that you need to refer to external memory to refresh your recollection. Studying something closely and repetitiously enough to know it by heart makes the knowledge more useful. It also provides you with a sort of navigational buoy or pylon that acts as a referent for other important pieces of knowledge.
Mass media (electronic media in particular) tends to encourage the user to seek many shallow impressions that do not always leave deep and permanent marks. So, any single impression doesn't leave a big mark or define your character. But deeper study into a single topic or work does have a profound effect on who you are.
Having kids has made me realise that how your parents treated you and how your siblings treated you probably plays a bigger role than anything else (maybe apart from genetics, I'm amazed at how much my kids personalities have differed from birth)
This gets to some of the difference between human intelligence and LLM training. The machine remembers everything verbatim (plus a vector representation). Most people have faulty memory but somehow make a deeper encoding of the impact a book or life experience had. Agree there is some analogy between vector encoding vs the mind’s representation — but it’s a loose analogy. LLMs and search etc are useful tools for sure - but definitely don’t have anything like human level deeper (yet faulty) intelligence. Sorry if I’m stating the obvious… cheers
The books you read make you as much as you want them to make you. You get out of them what you put into them. If you're consuming books but not able to recall much from them, then you're not putting enough into them.
I especially don't like the Emerson quote because of how consumerist it is in its sentiment. It's a self-soothing license to passively consume and relieve oneself from any obligations to work to derive deeper substance from what they consume.
I've saved a link to more or less every thought-provoking article I've read since the last 12 years (first in Evernote, and now Obsidian). I have two notes, one "links", the other "article notes", that's just a bare minimum note-taking system for stuff I read on the web. Both notes are huge, and undoubtedly contain many tidbits of advice, perception shifting ideas, or "subjectivity merges" (https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/books-are-subjectivity-me...).
One of my project ideas now that has been building in my mind is, 12 years on, to go back and re-read and re-evaluate many of these links, and do a short write-up on how I've been influence by this article or any explicit choices that I've made in my life that could likely be attributed to it. I think this would be fascinating from a psychological/neurological POV but also a really cool chance to reflect on how I've changed/grown as a person.
[+] [-] y04nn|1 year ago|reply
Since I realized this, I am more meticulous when choosing what I do and don't do, there is no going back.
[+] [-] kromem|1 year ago|reply
The other day I was thinking about LLM aggregation and in my internal dialogue used the example of "aliens built the pyramids" as a fringe theory that would be picked up on if tuning for other associated fringe positions by LLMs at places like Gab.
Later in the day I saw in my news feed an article on "how were the pyramids built?" (One of my interests is Egyptian and LBA Mediterranean archeology, so on topic.)
At first I thought "how the heck did it read my mind?"
But then as I thought about it more I remembered that usually my go to example of a fringe position is flat earth. So why was I suddenly using pyramids as the example in my internal dialogue.
What must have happened was that I initially saw the article headline in my feed in passing and didn't consciously register it, but when I was reaching for a fringe position example had been primed for that, and then only after having consciously been reflecting on the topic actually noticed the article in my feed.
Which IMO is a much more alarming explanation for the phenomenon - that my thinking was being written to a degree by my feed - than that my phone was somehow listening in on things or reading my mind.
It reminds me of a graffiti artist in NYC who used to write graffiti about how in reading it he had effectively graffitied your mind.
[+] [-] Zambyte|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] feoren|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nsagent|1 year ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
[+] [-] pyinstallwoes|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] al_borland|1 year ago|reply
I heard those quote for the first time about 4 years ago. I had often been a bit disappointed with myself for not taking more notes while reading, or reviewing what I read in a way where I could be one of those people to bring up quotes and concepts, citing back to the original source, with freakish accuracy. This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective, even if I can’t cite all the sources that built my perspective on a topic.
[+] [-] keefle|1 year ago|reply
Once upon a time a man wanted to be handed the title of a poet, so he went to the king of poets at his time, and asked him to give him the title of a poet. The king of poets asked the man, "Do you memorize tens of thousands of the best poetry?", the man said "I do not", the king of poems asked of him: "go memorize them then come back to me". The man went to a faraway isolated monastary, spend a couple of years memorizing the poems, then came back to the king of poets shouting in excitement "I've memorized the tens of thousands of poems! Can you hand me the title of a poet now?". The king of poets asked of him "Now forget them".
Only after years again spent in the monastery forgetting the poems, was the man given the title of a poet.
(Side note: this story also kinda remind me of LLMs, and how they kind of "memorize" text initially but the more data is poured in the more they "forget" the exact texts)
[+] [-] JacobiX|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kieckerjan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 7222aafdcf68cfe|1 year ago|reply
It can be found on the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20130117104220/http://dobelli.co...
[+] [-] scyzoryk_xyz|1 year ago|reply
This orange site I have mixed feelings about though.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eviks|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Painsawman123|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] freilanzer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] socksy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mo_42|1 year ago|reply
I guess roughly, this is right. But there's more to add. I have a brain with a certain configuration. This configuration is partly genetic and partly environmental. The environmental part has been shaped by every sensory input so far, including all the books. However, some books resonate well. They make me think about the topic weeks after finishing them. Other books don't resonate at all. My brain's is not fit for them. It just ja sequence of words (e.g., the books my high school literature teacher made me read).
I guess humans aren't a ANN that treats every training sample equal. Our brain has a mechanism to put more or less weight on sensory input given previous input. Some ideas are utterly confusing and don't stick at all. I think this happens a lot when people of different religions or political camps interact.
[+] [-] cdrini|1 year ago|reply
I think books we do resonate with can have a larger impact for the reasons you mentioned, but I think they all have an impact.
I like to think of books as planets, and you're a spaceship. If you're not paying attention, as you graze a planet it'll slightly alter your course. Maybe in perceptibly so. If you are aware of it and resonate with it, you can kind of use its gravity to swing you into a different direct -- presumably onto a direction you want to go in.
[+] [-] pixl97|1 year ago|reply
I've always liked to say "free will isn't your current decision, but your previous one"
[+] [-] thorum|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rramadass|1 year ago|reply
A good way to think about it is the description of Mycroft Holmes by Sherlock Holmes;
"The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant."
[+] [-] ahazred8ta|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] squeegmeister|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitme|1 year ago|reply
I would apply this to fiction books too. Some people consider reading fiction books a waste of time.
But fiction books too can expand your mind by exploring ideas that may not be possible in non-fiction books or exploring the same ideas but in a way that non-fiction books cannot achieve easily or at all.
[+] [-] tmnvix|1 year ago|reply
We've all had that moment when reading fiction where we instantly recognise something and think to ourselves, 'huh, so I'm not the only one!'
For this reason, I think that fiction is an invaluable aspect of human communication.
[+] [-] scop|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Balgair|1 year ago|reply
-Mortimer J Adler
I think this quote applies too.
[+] [-] Hates_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] habosa|1 year ago|reply
There are definitely some forms of fiction that are less enlightening than others, but even the “lowest” forms are generally time better spent than scrolling the internet or watching random TV channels.
[+] [-] nojs|1 year ago|reply
This gives natural spaced repetition on the good stuff, and also you pick up different things in subsequent readings.
[+] [-] mindcrime|1 year ago|reply
The biggest problem with all of this is simply that it's very time consuming. But when doing a pointed, intentional "deep dive" into something specific, I've found it to be effective.
[+] [-] trsh|1 year ago|reply
Sometimes we want to eat those Chicken 'n' Waffles, just like sometimes we go on a trashy TV show binge! It's just a small thing that serves as a comforting release, and we shouldn't let the guilt overcome us!
[+] [-] soylentcola|1 year ago|reply
I read a ton of what even I consider "fluff". Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, adventure, horror. Novels that get unceremoniously lumped under "genre fare".
But even if the primary motivation is entertainment, I can honestly say that from a young age, reading lots of anything exposed me to new ideas, ways of thinking, and perspectives.
Even something as simple as spelling and vocabulary seem to come a lot easier, if only due to having seen so many words written out over time. I remember being a kid and never really having issues with spelling or knowing most words because I'd at least run across them already.
That's not to say reading more "serious" material is useless. It just isn't an either/or question.
[+] [-] lazydon|1 year ago|reply
One way to think about it is that reading on the internet, no matter how casual, is like scattering seeds on the soil of your mind. Some of these seeds will grow into trees and influence your actions and decisions, whether you're aware of it or not.
[+] [-] _zamorano_|1 year ago|reply
It's not uncommon to discover that some clever ideas I thought I came up with have been, in fact, read in a book. Humbling.
The thing is, you cannot get to that point by following productivity hacks. It's true that most divulgation books can we summarized in 2 pages. But the way good authors present the same idea again and again, through different examples and viewpoints is what remains in your brain.
[+] [-] keiferski|1 year ago|reply
The short version is this: there’s nothing inherent about the format of a book that makes it ideal for learning. It is mostly a historical consequence of the fact that scratching symbols onto stone or paper, then replicating that paper/stone is easier to develop than recording and playing back audio or video. Human beings spent thousands of years using languages that were purely spoken ones, and writing is a fairly recent thing historically speaking.
If somehow it became possible to record and play back spoken language thousands of years ago, writing might have never become a widespread thing at all. Even today, speech is how the vast majority of the world uses language. Let’s not forget how influential the book form has been on thought, from the Bible to the Quran, etc.
And so if you brush away the mystique and legacy of books and think about what an ideal learning format would be, I think it would be quite different from a book. Probably it would incorporate audiovisuals, spaced repetition, and some form of storytelling.
All of this is about reading for information, not for pleasure. But I don’t primarily read fiction for information in the first place.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20940944, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23319599, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38095507, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39521964
[+] [-] acureau|1 year ago|reply
If the same amount of time and care were put into, say a YouTube video, I'd prefer the video. But that's very rare. My reading is 100% informational however, so I am biased in that regard.
[+] [-] JacobiX|1 year ago|reply
I read a lot of fiction books, mainly classics for pleasure. And what I found unique is that only in books I have access to the interior monologue of the characters, their thoughts, and on some occasions, direct access to their "stream of consciousness".
I love it, and I discovered that some characters (but in reality it's the authors) have a similar process of thought, and some others do not, and notice and sense things differently ...
[+] [-] leobg|1 year ago|reply
Personally, I find reading is a much more interactive activity. You can seek, you can skip, you can summarize, you can repeat. Innoway, it is much closer and deeper than a conversation with another person. And definitely much closer than a video audio recording of that person, which is more like a speech than a conversation.
[+] [-] modeless|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] faeriechangling|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] purple-leafy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sharadov|1 year ago|reply
If you don't have the means or the time to travel then your next best option is reading.
[+] [-] mountainb|1 year ago|reply
Mass media (electronic media in particular) tends to encourage the user to seek many shallow impressions that do not always leave deep and permanent marks. So, any single impression doesn't leave a big mark or define your character. But deeper study into a single topic or work does have a profound effect on who you are.
[+] [-] pipes|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] AvAn12|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] segmondy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] VoodooJuJu|1 year ago|reply
The books you read make you as much as you want them to make you. You get out of them what you put into them. If you're consuming books but not able to recall much from them, then you're not putting enough into them.
I especially don't like the Emerson quote because of how consumerist it is in its sentiment. It's a self-soothing license to passively consume and relieve oneself from any obligations to work to derive deeper substance from what they consume.
[+] [-] aj_g|1 year ago|reply
One of my project ideas now that has been building in my mind is, 12 years on, to go back and re-read and re-evaluate many of these links, and do a short write-up on how I've been influence by this article or any explicit choices that I've made in my life that could likely be attributed to it. I think this would be fascinating from a psychological/neurological POV but also a really cool chance to reflect on how I've changed/grown as a person.