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Comment by dynamite-ready | Hacker News Reader

I like to think it's less about patterns of consumption, and more about what we consume.

One of my favourite quotes:

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

To me, that suggests a number of things. For one, consuming information is undervalued by the author of the blog. It's fundamental to us.

Secondly, while you like broccoli and drink milk, I might well be allergic to milk and hate broccoli (I don't, just musing)... So one should be slow to judge. That said, I've never used Netflix. I could be missing out.

And finally, you wouldn't eat a 4 course meal on you commute, and you would definitely have some trouble making one on a bus or train ride too.

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Thank you for this quote.

I am going through a book (The Nicomachean Ethics) trying to really understand every sentence in it, and its meaning. Going back and forth, taking notes. More like studying it than reading it, I guess.

It's taking me a long time, almost a year.

I was wondering if I remember the previous chapters, and I sort of do so. But I worry that by the time I have finished it, I will not be able to summarize the chapters well.

I guess it's not necessary. There are many things I have picked up from it; it has lead to many interesting discussions with my friends, and so on. That should be enough.

Consider pre-reading it first. If a book is hard, if it’s over you head, try going through the whole book w/o stopping on things you don’t understand (don’t fixate). In this way you’ll grasp the major points, ideas and themes. Only then read it carefully — you’ll understand better and get more out of the book.

It’s similar to progressive JPEG rendering. Your first pass is pre-processing resulting in fuzzy understanding of the whole that you then refine in the subsequent pass(es). Progressive way is more natural and effective.

I highly recommend reading Adler’s “How to Read a Book” [1]. This exactly the guide you want to read if you want to know how to learn well from books.

1. https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

Thank you for the suggestion, I will give it a try.

I love that quote, but in my experience there are diminishing returns.

I peaked (according to Goodreads) in 2012 when I read 75 books (including many large tomes! Godel Escher Bach, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Catch-22, Hyperion, Brothers Karamazov, Thinking Fast and Slow). But after all that, I felt like a hollow/vain effort. I felt like I spent TOO much time in books, time not investing in relationships or skills.

Now I read ~25 a year, and that seems like a sweet spot (though I still feel like I spend too much time on reddit/HN heh).

Anyways the OP article resonated with me. I've been taking the bus for the first time in my life this year and am wanting to start writing while on it.

I know Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote something similar, in the 18th Century: - https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/868998-i-forget-most-of-wha...

I like the "you are what you eat" sentiment and agree about judging (I used to hate broccoli, now I tolerate it) but analogies being what they are:

> And finally, you wouldn't eat a 4 course meal on you commute, and you would definitely have some trouble making one on a bus or train ride too.

You wouldn't eat a 4 course meal on a bus, but it's not 4 courses and flavor and textures that "make you", it's the calories and nutrients. I can absolutely eat a 2/3 of a day's worth of food on a bus no problem, and I can absolutely make this food on a bus too. Think Soylent-like shakes.

(The equivalent of making Soylent shakes on a longer commute is a netbook with SSH connection to my home desktop, running terminal Emacs frame. Don't do that always, though - I learned to use travel time to rest and think.)

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