4 ms·

First I want to take this opportunity to plug one of my favorite books as of late: "Sayings of the desert fathers". It is a collection of writings from very ea

First I want to take this opportunity to plug one of my favorite books as of late: "Sayings of the desert fathers". It is a collection of writings from very early Christian monks (around 200AD): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140447318/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140447318/. Cannot recommend this enough. You can read more about these monks here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers?useskin=vector And here is a famous quote from Saint Anthony: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.” This is relevant because a lot of the things in this book have to do with removing distractions. The monks were doing it to pray. Okay that said: Something I've been noticing about myself lately, which could just be reading comprehension decline? I tend to skim what people write heavily. So much of what people write seems completely pointless. ChatGPT and other LLMs have really laid this bare. You can take a simple statement like "tell this person that I can't make it to dinner", and it will expand it into several paragraphs of niceties, but the actual information is the same. I've noticed that it makes it difficult to switch back to information-dense reading, and to actually read all of it instead of reflexively skimming it to try and glean out the seed.

rcktmrtn 4y ago
> I've noticed that it makes it difficult to switch back to information-dense reading, and to actually read all of it instead of reflexively skimming it to try and glean out the seed. Keeping on the religious theme I've noticed this with the Psalms, even before considering the GPT stuff. I think I grew up taught to be over-dismissive of many types of poetry. I always had an impression that it was mostly just silly space-filling pseduo-deep reused imagery and repetition. School didn't help dissuade me of this. For me, I think the thing to overcome is to focus on the value of a sense of respect for the author and the work unto itself, rather than just valuing the "understanding" you get from the text (which will always be shaped by preconceptions). A sense of awe (maybe at divine inspiration, maybe at near-divine genius, or maybe just at the sacrifice of time and life-force an ordinary person gave up to create something). For the example of the Psalms, I have noticed that despite finding the language clunky at first, they have a certain way of sticking in your head that prose does not. A strategy I've been focusing on recently is giving myself permission to reread (and maybe memorize) important/enjoyable works. Reading something twice is basically the opposite of skimming, or a way to counteract skimming. There probably is such a thing as rereading something more than it deserves (I reread Calvin and Hobbes for the zillionth time recently, which I still deeply enjoy but now it's more of a way to relax my mind before bed than a source of insight) but there are certainly works that do deserve it [1]. Anyway, something I've been thinking about a lot as well and I agree that it's fascinating to consider how fundamental is it to the human condition that monks have been struggling with it for millennia. The book recommendation is appreciated. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0OY1RDe8Yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0OY1RDe8Yg

rcktmrtn 4y ago

> I've noticed that it makes it difficult to switch back to information-dense reading, and to actually read all of it instead of reflexively skimming it to try and glean out the seed. Keeping on the religious theme I've noticed this with the Psalms, even before considering the GPT stuff. I think I grew up taught to be over-dismissive of many types of poetry. I always had an impression that it was mostly just silly space-filling pseduo-deep reused imagery and repetition. School didn't help dissuade me of this. For me, I think the thing to overcome is to focus on the value of a sense of respect for the author and the work unto itself, rather than just valuing the "understanding" you get from the text (which will always be shaped by preconceptions). A sense of awe (maybe at divine inspiration, maybe at near-divine genius, or maybe just at the sacrifice of time and life-force an ordinary person gave up to create something). For the example of the Psalms, I have noticed that despite finding the language clunky at first, they have a certain way of sticking in your head that prose does not. A strategy I've been focusing on recently is giving myself permission to reread (and maybe memorize) important/enjoyable works. Reading something twice is basically the opposite of skimming, or a way to counteract skimming. There probably is such a thing as rereading something more than it deserves (I reread Calvin and Hobbes for the zillionth time recently, which I still deeply enjoy but now it's more of a way to relax my mind before bed than a source of insight) but there are certainly works that do deserve it [1]. Anyway, something I've been thinking about a lot as well and I agree that it's fascinating to consider how fundamental is it to the human condition that monks have been struggling with it for millennia. The book recommendation is appreciated. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0OY1RDe8Yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0OY1RDe8Yg