[dangus]

> Otherwise, wasn’t reading it in the first place a waste of our precious time?

I weirdly wish the article entertained the answer of “yes!”

Instead of doing that it barely backs the knowledge-obsessed away from the cliff in an attempt to convince them to just don’t take quite so many notes, maybe step back and stop pretending like you’re crunching for an exam and absorb the information you’re reading.

But I would actually take this a step further for a lot of people and say that, depending on what you’re reading and why you’re reading, it might be quite literally a waste of time, especially if you’re reading not for enjoyment but because you feel pressure to gain knowledge and constantly upskill.

There’s a concept of the movie buff being cursed to watch worse and worse movies over time. They start with the best must-watch movies and it’s all downhill from there. They get done watching something like (wildly random examples) Amelie, Spirited Away, or the original Star Wars trilogy and hunt for something that scratches the same itch, only to find out that they just watched the best/only example of that particular concept done well.

In the same way, something I notice about frequent readers is that they’re reading utter trash, and probably for a similar reason. Luckily for them, there are far more books than movies, but I think there’s merit to this concept.

Obviously, there’s a ton of value in reading especially during grade school as it helps you gain valuable language and writing skills, but I think my advice on top of what this article says is that you don’t have to read shit if you don’t want to. Life isn’t really only about knowledge-based enlightenment, that’s just one feature of life among many.

[jbstack]

Some books are a complete waste of time to read without retention. For example, there is no value to me in reading and forgetting a technical book on some piece of software that I only use infrequently but need to be reasonably competent with when I do use it. These books I'm reading purely for utility; if I don't gain that utility then reading it was pointless.

At the other end of the scale, I read fiction purely for enjoyment. Attempting to make any notes at all or to memorise what I'm reading would make the process unnecessarily tedious and defeat the purpose of it, while gaining me very little value.

In between these are non-fictional / narrative books which contain useful insights or information which I don't necessarily need for my work but aren't strictly only for entertainment purposes. Examples of this might include biographies or personal development / self help books. With these I'm not interested in exhaustively memorising everything, but neither do I want to completely forget the most valuable points. Here, a hybrid approach works best; perhaps some highlighting and more selective note-taking, with a few key points turned into Anki cards if I feel that I want to retain the information long term.

The problem with the article is that it proposes a single method ("a much more relaxed approach to knowledge consumption") no matter the context, whereas I would argue that you should adapt the method to each book depending on what your goal is in reading it.

[helboi4]

I dunno there are tons and tons of really good books out there. I don't think you could go through them all in one lifetime. Books are easier to create and have been around for much longer than movies. Executing a whole movie well requires at least thousands, if not millions of dollars, loads of equipment, a huge team of people who need to all be top notch at a variety of different specialist skills, extras, onsite permissions and often years of time. A book can be written in about one year or less through the work of only one person, using just one skill that we all learn as a child. It's way easier to execute a book well. So, as you said, theres more of them, and definitely because of this theres tons of good ones. Experts or people with interesting lives really don't have the time, resources or skills to make a film but loads of them write books.

Most people who read almost constantly do read a decent amount of books that are less good than the others. Though they will often read more good books than you too. When I used to read books constantly, I could read faster and retain more. I could also write better. Now I read rarely because I only care to read the most useful things, it takes me way longer to read, I am less focused and retain less and my writing is somewhat worse. So I do think it's worth reading often for those benefits. Reading is so unenjoyable to me now I don't do it frequently. But it's not like I'm doing more useful and enjoyable things with my time either. Life isn't only about knowledge-based enlightenment, I agree, but it is usually about wasting a certain amount of time, whether you like it or not. So you might as well waste it well. In this case, waste it by reading lighter material so that your brain is always primed to read the good stuff efficiently.

At least, that's my new years resolution.