Learning
... See moreAs our ability to concentrate has collapsed, I’ve become more and more convinced that it is the superpower we should long for. Sustained focus is the engine that connects dots and builds things. To concentrate with the intensity of a chess grandmaster on the object of your choosing is to find out what you are capable of—what you are capable of
... See moreIn our busy and distracted society, deep reading is increasingly rare. Deep reading changes people. When you interact with people, you can tell who reads seriously and who doesn’t. This isn’t just a matter of mental ability or intelligence. There is a difference between raw cognitive horsepower and time spent immersed in complex and intricate
... See moreSkill, on the other hand, must be developed, step-by-step, mostly through failure. The quickness and quality of skill development depends on the quality and immediacy of the corrective feedback a student receives. It also depends on the student’s willingness to re-engage after failing. It is also dependent upon the number and level of students in a
... See moreEvery breakthrough — every invention, every industry, every new frontier — began with a handful of extraordinary individuals free to take extraordinary risks. Washington led men into battle at 22. Carnegie was building his steel empire by 30. Meriwether Lewis charted the American West in his twenties. Sam Colt patented the revolver at 22. Palmer
... See moreEven if you can’t experience the thing directly, try going for information-dense sources with high amounts of detail and facts, and then reason up from those facts. On foreign policy, read books published by university presses -- not The Atlantic or The Economist or whatever. You can read those after you’ve developed a model of the thing yourself,
Four basic questions when reading a book: 1) what is the book about as a whole? 2) what is being said in detail? 3) is the book wholly or in part true? 4) what is the significance of its meaning and truth?
From How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
“You will not learn anything of lasting importance from TV, movies, podcasts…they’re junk food. Successful people converge on 3 ways to learn: lots of reading time, some exercises and projects, and conversations with people who are slightly ahead of them.”
Read. and How I Read
On reading stories: “You have not grasped the whole story until you can summarize its plot in a brief narration—not a proposition or argument. Therein lies its unity.”
Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book
... See moreYour flashlight is already bright enough to achieve your most ambitious goals, and to my knowledge there aren’t many things you can do to actually increase the intensity of your flashlight’s beam much. This is why most of our energy should be directed towards improving our environment to ensure that our flashlight simply remains fixed on the right