Bite-sized knowledgeto upgrade
your career
to upgrade
Ideas from books, articles & podcasts.
The maximalist philosophy of reading
The modern world equates the intelligent person will the well-read person. It's difficult to think of anyone arriving at any worthy insights without having read an impressive number of books.
But despite the pressure to read through multiple awarded and fascinating books, we might pause and reflect on an interesting aspect of the pre-modern world: Reading was important, but it never put people under any pressure to read very much at all. It was more important to read a few books very well and not waste time on a great number of volumes.
STASHED IN:
268
MORE IDEAS FROM THE SAME ARTICLE
The modern world has adopted an Enlightenment mantra that states there should be no limit to how much we read because we read in order to know everything. We don't read to understand God or to follow civic virtue; we read to understand the whole of human ...
The premodern world was obsessed with asking, "what is the point is of reading?" They had answers too.
Our exhaustive approach to reading does not make us truly happy. We appear to have a permanent sense of being under-read when compared with our peers and what the media has declared respectable.
With this new targeted ambition in mind, to read for personal contentment, the pressure to read all the time starts to lift. We have the option of only a dozen books on our shelves and yet feel in no way intellectually undernourished or deprived.
32 Reactions
Comment
MORE LIKE THIS
created 6 ideas
28
Comment
2.49K reads
created 5 ideas
11
Comment
1.09K reads
❤️ Brainstash Inc.