#151: The Art of Not Reading, Generation Effect & Tsundoku
#151: The Art of Not Reading, Generation Effect & Tsundoku
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on the Art of (Not) Reading
I. The Art of Not Reading
One way to learn how to enjoy reading books is via negativa, that is by knowing what not to read. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called this the Art of Not Reading:
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms
II. Generation Effect
You may have noticed that merely reading books doesn't give you a good grasp of a topic. New knowledge is quickly forgotten again. The Generation Effect suggests that you remember information better if you generate it from your own mind. So the best strategy seems to be to read and then write about it. So pretty much what I do with my newsletter and essays.
The approach is also reminiscent of the Feynman Technique, a method based on learning through teaching.
Source: The Generation Effect: Activating Broad Neural Circuits During Memory Encoding
III. Tsundoku
Unfortunately, it tends to be hard to keep up with writing about all the books you haven’t even read yet. If this problem sounds familiar, here’s a sophisticated-sounding word you can use to describe it: Tsundoku.
Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dokusho (reading books).
The word originated in the late 19th century as a satirical jab at teachers who owned books but didn’t read them. […] Today the word carries no stigma in Japanese culture. It also differs from bibliomania, which is the obsessive collecting of books for the sake of the collection, not their eventual reading.
—Kevin Dickinson, BigThink
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Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com