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December 2016

Post image for Maybe You Don’t Have a Problem

For a grown man who writes for a living, I read very slowly and I’m self-conscious about it. Finishing a novel in less than two weeks feels like an accomplishment. If I love it from the start I’ll fly through it in a week or less, but usually that means I’m spending several hours a day on it.

Yet there are people who read two or three or seven or eight books a week. I have always wanted to be one of these people, and two months ago I decided to become one. My philosophy was simple: whatever they do, I will do that.

It seemed obvious that people who read five or ten times as many books as I do must be going about it completely differently. They’re not just reading—as I know it—more quickly. They must be using their eyes and minds in ways I never learned to.

So I dove into the dubious world of speedreading. I bought the best-reviewed instructional book on the topic, and promised myself I’d work through the program.

The technique was indeed very different from how I normally read. Zip your finger across the lines as a pacing device. Don’t say the words in your head. Don’t stop to reread anything you didn’t quite get—just allow the important words to come through and the natural redundancy of the material to fill in gaps in your comprehension.

And these instructions did do something. I found I was able to plow through non-fiction at more than double the speed right away, and actually comprehend most (I think) of the ideas presented. With words coming into my head that quickly, there was no time for daydreaming or distraction.

But it wasn’t pleasant. It felt like I was on a game show on the Food Network, scrambling to cook something presentable while a clock ticked down. My reading was quick, and not so quick as to be useless, but it was sloppy and completely devoid of joy. I don’t believe I was absorbing the material in the way the author intended. There’s no way would I read a novel that way.

When I investigated the topic of speedreading itself, I learned that it isn’t really a faster method of reading. It’s a kind of pragmatic skimming, very useful for consuming large volumes of material for school or work, or otherwise extracting vital information from anything you don’t actually want to read. But by most accounts it’s not a way to finally enjoy Proust.  Read More

cookies

Over the entire calendar year I probably eat a little more than I should. But it only becomes a crisis in December, when every semblance of moderation goes out the window, for a number of reasons.

The biggest problem is holiday get-togethers—for Christmas, or certain sports events, or just because a lot of people are off work. Usually each person brings 15,000 calories in a casserole dish for everyone to share. Most of these recipes call for one or more bricks of cream cheese, or bacon wrappings for foods that are normally not wrapped in anything.

There are always dainty little desserts that could be eaten in sets of two or three, each piece smaller than a deck of cards but somehow containing 350 calories. There are little bowls of nuts beside wherever you happen to sit, and you eat them for the same reason George Mallory climbed Everest. (He died.)

Egg nog reappears, which would be a shame to miss even though it contains eight thousand calories per glass. While you’re finishing your main pile of food, someone’s aunt is circulating, telling people to “Eat more, there’s lots!” and you want to help them out so you do.

And because you know defending against this festive onslaught is futile, you give yourself an official hall pass for the evening, and double down on your consumption to take advantage. You have a few drinks to dull the guilt. During the second round of Apples to Apples you decide you will take a cab home, which means you must have three or four more drinks. And because everybody brought five or ten times as much food as they eat, you get sent home with several pounds of leftovers, and end up eating crab dip and carrot cake for breakfast.  Read More

Post image for Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News

I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.

But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.

To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here. This post isn’t an indictment of journalism as a whole. There’s a big difference between watching a half hour of CNN’s refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore) versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the same topic.

If you quit, even for just a month or so, the news-watching habit might start to look quite ugly and unnecessary to you, not unlike how a smoker only notices how bad tobacco makes things smell once he stops lighting up.

A few things you might notice, if you take a break:  Read More

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