Reading over Writing

For the past 3 years i’ve written a lot of notes, used various approaches, famous Zettelkasten method, etc. But i’ve missed the main point: application to the practice.

Writing by itself is a big deal: it helps to organize your thoughts, control your emotions, booking you decisions. But it’s tremendously important to read. We all stand on the shoulders of giants who shined before us. We build upon their experience. Our ideas are derivative of ideas of people who lived before us, experienced the similar things. If we don’t read, we have no ground to write.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. – James Baldwin

And reading is not only about books. It’s about playing video games, watching films. It’s a way to experience other people ideas, bad or good, and build upon them you own experience. I don’t want to say that we should act the same as people before us. I want to say that we’re all connected in our cause. And we’re all solving the common problem from the different perspectives.

Biggest value of notetaking and active reading that i found - to comeback to your thoughts. Revive your experience. Retouch thoughts and emotions happened to you, when you experienced some event, some book, some video game. This is extremely valuable for new thoughts and perspectives to appear. My finished notebooks take place on the bookstand, where i consider them as a works of my living.

Books and other sources that are read are not placed away forever. Instead, the best sources are revisited over and over. Some works are so fundamental, or changed my life, ideas and views so drastically, so i comeback to them over and over, since it gives more and more value. For example Marcus Aurelius - Meditations can be studied for life. By 1-2, or even 100 reads you will never acquire the full set of ideas.

Reading is a lifelong journey.