on the pace of consumption/creation forms, relative attentional demands, and optimal efficiency as a lifestyle

It’s this notion of quantifying an intellectual pursuit, as if it’s only valuable insofar as you can quantify it: the number of books you read as signifier of your intellectual curiosity.

almost everything good is inefficient .

Listening to a book or podcast at some insane speed – well beyond what you could comprehend, process, and think about in any reasonable way – puts the entire value of that media on the acquisition of information. I’ve certainly felt this, a desire to “have read” a book, to finish it and be able to place it in the collection in my mind of things I’v... See more