21 ms·
Maybe the default settings are too high
- chilmers 10mo agoIf you’re a fan of LOTR but don’t fancy reading it aloud yourself, I’d really recommend the new audio versions read by Andy Serkis. While I don’t vibe with every facet of his performance, overall it’s a tour-de-force, and really makes the prose come to life. Especially in those descriptive sections that it’s possible to glaze over when reading the text. Having an actor of the calibre of Serkis reading them to you brings out the poetry and beauty of Tolkien’s language.
- xeonmc 10mo agoIs the entire thing narrated in Gollum’s voice?
- taberiand 10mo agoHe does lots of different voices, it's very good
- sethammons 9mo ago> "Fly-ses you foool-ses", exclaimed stupid, dry tricksy one
- loloquwowndueo 10mo agoNoooo. Audio books feed you the content at someone else’s pace, not at your (slow) pace, which is exactly what TFA advocates. Or, what are you going to do? Hit Pause after each sentence so you can fully digest and savor it?
- qwertytyyuu 10mo agoUse the playback speed settings, tough hitting pause every once in a while is also a good idea
- Dylan16807 10mo agoAn audiobook is bad if you want to go extra slow. I don't think I want to go that slow. The article advocates not rushing. In general, that's a good fit for audiobooks.
- Zenbit_UX 10mo agoFirst of all, I don’t recommend going through life yucking someone else’s yum. Second of all, I took TFA advice and read that article with the slowness and deliberate attention it recommended and found it to be trite and difficult to distinguish from AI slop… but if that’s what brings this person joy, good for them. Who cares if the GP eats their cookies in one bite and listens to their audiobooks at 2.25x speed? Because one self help guru turned blogger said it’s a bad idea?
- loloquwowndueo 10mo agoInteresting how in your second paragraph you do exactly the thing you said not to do in your first.
- crazygringo 10mo agoThe article literally says: > limiting myself to mouth-speed Audiobooks are mouth-speed. The article suggests this is the right slow speed, at least for the author. Maybe you yourself want even slower, but that's not what the article is suggesting.
- gryson 9mo agoAnd if you keep reading (at whatever speed), you get to the actual point of the article: >So I tried slowing down even more, and discovered something. I slowed to a pace that felt almost absurd, treating each sentence as though it might be a particularly important one. I gave each one maybe triple the usual time and attention, ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of pages to go.
- WhyNotHugo 9mo agoAudiobook are mouth speed but have no pause. When reading slowly, I often want to pause a few seconds and think about what I just read before moving on to the next sentence.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> Audiobook are mouth speed but have no pause. You can’t pause your audiobooks?
- crazygringo 9mo agoI pause audiobooks all the time by squeezing the base of my earbud, or pressing the big pause button on my Bluetooth speaker. Works great. As well as the triple-tap to go back 15 seconds to hear something again.
- sublinear 10mo agoI hate audiobooks because they're way too slow and full of moods/tones that often contradict how I would have read it. I can't be the only one who thinks they're overindulgent and annoying.
- bigiain 10mo agoFor me, "overindulgent and annoying" is way too harsh. But they feel _sooooo_ slow and I kind of resent "missing out" on the other books I could have read while the audiobook plods along (even at chipmunk 2x babble speed).
- Uvix 10mo agoI save audiobooks for times when I couldn't have read something else - while doing chores, driving, etc. - so I can avoid that "missing out" feeling.
- UltraSane 10mo agoAudible and most audiobook player apps let you control the speed. I usually listen at 1.25 to 1.5
- bigiain 10mo agoThat to me, feels opposite the the article's advice. And I too, often watch youtube at 1.5x or 2x speed, and dislike audiobooks because I read so much faster that I can possibly listen to them, and there's always an ever growing list/pile of books I want to read after this one. I wonder if that's why a certain type of movie works so well for me - I think of them as "movies made from short stories, not novels", and now I'm wondering if it's something similar to the OP's idea - and that spending 2 hours watching a short story I'd expect to read in 15/20mins is what I'm enjoying, in a different way to, say, the new Dune movies - which so far have been 4-5 hours watching a couple of big novel's worth of story that'd take me a week or so to read? Just writing that out now, I realised theres a two orders of magnitude difference in speed there going from 1/10th of reading speed to 10x reading speed - from a 15 minute read to 2 hour watch, to a week long read to 4-5 hour watch. Hardly surprising they hit my brain differently.
- UltraSane 9mo agoAudiobooks are awesome because I can listen to them while doing other things like walking or biking or lifting weights. And the best narrators actually improve the books like The Hail Mary Project and Blood Meridian.
- teiferer 9mo agoThat's the exact opposite of what the article is about. The desire to time optimize, to rush it cause "this is sooo sloooow, booooring" is what creates only an illusion of time efficiency but you might discover that if you actually give it the time, there is a whole world to discover. That's what the article is about.
- UltraSane 9mo agoReading books as slow as the article says is rather silly.
- baobun 10mo agoNot each sentence but I do regularly pause and sometimes skip back in audiobooks, yes.
- satvikpendem 10mo agoThen just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed? I don't understand this question.
- retsibsi 10mo ago> Then just use 0.75 or 0.5x speed? I think this often sounds unsettling (like the reader is drunk or otherwise impaired), and anyway the listener doesn't need more time to recognise each individual word -- they want time to take in sentences and paragraphs.
- satvikpendem 10mo agoGet a text to speech app and change the lengths between sentences while keeping the actual read aloud speed the same, I recall using something like that before.
- anywhichway 10mo agoIt isn't just how fast or slow it is. Reading at a slow pace gives you time to think in a way that is flexible from sentence to sentence. To borrow the same analogy from the article, image trying to savor a meal where someone else was deciding when you take each bite. Even at a slow pace, the rigidness of the pace and your lack of fine control would still pose a problem with giving each bite it's rightful consideration. That being said I love audio books and think I would struggle to apply this article's advice in my own life. Slowing down your audiobook is still a step in that direction, though I sometimes find that slowing it down can cause my mind to wander and my comprehension goes down and not up.
- m463 10mo agoI think a long drive in the car is complemented exceptionally well by audiobooks. and audiobooks with really good narrators? the miles will melt away. (I like Wil Wheaton) (don't know about lotr oudiobooks) (currently part way through we are legion read by ray porter)
- kbutler 9mo agoWe had tried video in the car for our teens, but found that audio books worked a lot better - shared experience, nobody has a bad angle/line of sight, can still see the scenery and engage in the travel, less looking down prompting motion sickness, etc. Though now that everybody has a device, we have to intentionally opt for a shared experience, rather than 1:1 devices.
- toyg 9mo agoListening to someone talking is how humanity transmitted culture and stories for tens of thousands of years. The fact that "we" cannot tolerate it anymore, is a sign of how badly our brains are being reshaped (or maybe damaged) by screens.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 9mo agoOTOH, fire, writing and sanitation are significant upgrades to what we were doing "for tens of thousands of years". State of nature isn't inherently good. It's bloody, smelly, dirty, and only incidentally nice, by virtue of evolutionary path dependence.
- toyg 9mo agoOral transmission of complex culture is one of the things that separates us from "the state of nature". As we lose it, we move further away from the beasts that conquered the planet and closer to the squirrel.
- TeMPOraL 9mo agoTransmission of complex culture is what separates us (and enables this complex culture in the first place); oral medium is merely one way to do it. Being the first one, it's probably not the best.
- toyg 9mo agoConsidering it's the only medium that needs literally nothing but ourselves to work, I disagree with your statement. But to each its own.
- BloondAndDoom 9mo agoNot the OP, but to me audio generally x2 slower than I read, so I’m content with the speed, anything slower than that would be weird pace for many stuff. Having said that yes I do indeed pause if I need to take a moment to think, and I roll back 15 seconds if I want to hear it again. Not a big deal, just part of the experience. -signed ex-hater of audiobooks
- zem 9mo agofor lotr in particular my last reread was slower paced because I kept this map[0] open and paused frequently to refer to it and see where everyone was. it was super enjoyable, I have literally read the book dozens of times before that and have never gotten so good a sense of the world's geography and the difficulty of various journeys. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/100n0y/maybe_the_most_detailed_map_of_middle_earth_ive/ https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/100n0y/maybe_t...
- sgt 9mo agoI guess he gets the Gollum parts just perfectly.
- pitched 10mo agoIt’s impossible to know if the content itself is worth the extra time and effort. Opportunity Cost is especially high in fiction. I agree that LotR should be on that list though.
- Yodel0914 10mo agoI partially agree, but it depends on your objective function. If you’re optimising for the enjoyment of the experience of reading, you don’t need to know if the content is “worth it”; just read it slowly and if you’re not enjoying it, stop.
- Gigachad 9mo agoWhen you start thinking about books in terms of opportunity cost, you’re the kind who needs to slow down the most.
- troad 9mo agoOh no (Would elaborate, but, y'know. Opportunity cost)
- pitched 9mo agoI slowed myself down to savour this comment for a full 20s. Enough time to linger on each word for a long moment. Just like parent was asking for. I pictured it spoken with a heavy Californian surfer accent. He wanted elaborate but a huge wave was breaking and he really didn’t want to miss the next one. Was in far too much of a rush to even leave punctuation behind. So long, dude, I hope the waves keep coming for you.
- troad 9mo agosick
- Morizero 10mo agoLotR is a product of a slower era. I wonder how a modern/recent example would compare
- malfist 10mo agoMaybe Robert Jordan or James SA Corey?
- eszed 10mo agoI've not read enough Corey to form a judgement, but I don't think Jordan has nearly enough literary "heft" to satisfy close reading. Don't get me wrong: the story is fun - I enjoyed every bit of Wheel of Time - and would recommend it to anyone who likes that sort of thing, but the deeper stuff (characters, prosidy, world-building, thematic "meaning") don't bear much examination. In fantasy / sci-fi, I'd unreservedly recommend: - Ursula K LeGuin - Steven Erickson - Gene Wolfe With reservations, I'd recommend: - Patrick Rothfuss (unfinished) - George RR Martin (unfinished; sometimes dodgy prose, but occasionally transcendent character and theme) - Dune (just know it goes downhill fast after the first book) Elsewhere, but still genre (ie: meant to be entertaining, not uber-serious, self-conscious "literature"): - Patrick O'Brian - Arthur Conan Doyle - Dorothy Dunnet I'd recommend Rudyard Kipling's short stories, but they're hit and miss, and sometimes out of step with modern mores. Maybe stick with the Jungle Book, and Just So Stories, and if you like those make sure you read Without Benefit of Clergy, They (short stories), and Kim (a masterpiece of a novel). Once you've got through those, Hemingway is approachable, and the true modernist master. Fiesta / The Sun Also Rises (same book, known by different names in different parts of the world) is ironic and beautiful; A Farewell to Arms is beautiful and almost unbearably sad; his short stories are impeccable.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- wredcoll 10mo agoThere's certainly slow books still being written but most fantasy books in specific assume a certain amount of knowledge about a tolkien-esque world. You can do entirely new worlds, and some people do, but most stories are about people and the choices they make.
- projektfu 10mo agoDoes Dostoyevsky really need the slow treatment? Some parts of crime and punishment merited rereading but, at least in English translation, I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it was more thematically interesting and suspenseful.
- maplethorpe 10mo agoWere you reading it in the original Russian?
- JumpCrisscross 10mo agoHaven’t gotten around to re-reading Dostoyevsky. But Turgenev’s English translations absolutely benefit from slow reading.
- treavorpasan 10mo agoFathers and Sons were absolute masterpiece.
- projektfu 9mo agoYes, in the English translation
- tetromino_ 10mo agoIn the original Russian, Dostoyevsky requires the slow treatment. He loves the sort of 1/3 page long sentences that perplex the fast-path parser and force the reader's brain to swap; as if he wants to drive you mad so that you can better understand the madmen whom he writes about.
- treavorpasan 10mo agoWait until you get to The Brothers Karamazov. There is so much to unpack, which requires very slow treatment. One of the things is savour so much is the time I read Idiot, we were on a cruise completely disconnected from the rest of the world. No distractions and just the sound on waves.
- delichon 10mo agoMy dad was a busy construction contractor. One summer he tore himself away from work and took the family to a week long boat camp out next to a big beautiful lake. It turned out that our campsite was actually in the lake by a few inches at high water, but dad saw a way to dam it off and keep it dry, so he grabs the shovel and starts digging trenches and building walls and ordering us around. About an hour into that, pouring sweat, he stops cold and says "what the hell am I doing?" The flooded camp was actually nice on a hot day and all we really had to do was move a couple of tents. He dropped the shovel and spent the rest of the week sunbathing, fishing, snorkeling and water skiing as God intended. He flipped a switch and went from Hyde to Jekyll on vacation. I've had to emulate that a few times.
- irishcoffee 10mo agoMy spouse and I dealt with this on our honeymoon. We were both working 50-80 hour weeks for months leading up to our trip. The first day we got to this all-inclusive resort we spent the whole time trying to min/max and be as efficient and calculated as possible. It was a stressful, miserable day. Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoI have a hard time doing anything when in a nice resort. If it’s too nice, you just want to hangout at your pool villa all day and enjoy the view.
- ghaff 9mo agoAnd if you're presumably paying a premium for a nice resort, why wouldn't you spend a lot of your time taking advantage of it?
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoYes, if you want to get out and do things, better to go for low or mid range. You don’t want your room to feel like a huge sunk cost.
- danielodievich 10mo agoWe read LOTR to our sons when they were little. It was likely the 6th time for me,and 3rd in English. Stupendous experience. The command of the English Tolkien had is sublime. Wish the movies didn't take so much liberty with Faramir.!!!
- ErroneousBosh 10mo agoI am currently reading The Hobbit to my son, who is 5 years old and not quite able to read it by himself yet. Nearly, but it's a lot for him to get through. Some evenings I use my Kindle, some evenings I use the copy I've owned since I was 11. However now he has started to write stories about dragons and things, and that's a pretty interesting development.
- djfergus 10mo agoFor younger kids I can heartily recommend the Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin- has plenty of pictures to them engaged. Read it to my 6 year old and we’re now excited for LotR.
- ErroneousBosh 9mo agoOh, this looks excellent, thanks :-)
- fwip 10mo agoWhen I was about 10, I read the Hobbit to my younger brother (8), over a large number of half-hour car trips. It's one my prouder memories of that time.
- mikestorrent 10mo agoI've not braved reading them LOTR yet, but my sons are still getting read to even as one's about to become a teenager; it's some of my favourite time in the evening and it allows me to force them through books just slightly too advanced, with lots of them stopping me to explain (or me stopping to editorialize, and provide historical context etc). I don't know how long they'll let me keep doing it for, but I don't see any reason to stop
- malfist 10mo agoI really enjoy this train of thought. It rings true to me, its also something Hank Green was recently talking about with the negative effects of the internet. Its not that the internet is bad. We're starved for information and meaning and were being feed a diet of ultraprocessed food in the form of shorts and tiktoks. I think the solution this author laid out is good. Consume quality, with care.
- skydhash 10mo agoThis is one of the reason I use openbsd and emacs as my two main tools. There are better and more suited tools for some specific tasks. But using them is enjoyable and their core philosophy aligns to mine. And it’s not like I actually need those extra things.
- powvans 10mo agoI find walking can be a similar experience. It really crystalized for me this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago because of the effect of exploring another country. When you walk, you see everything. The world is huge. Everything is slower, higher fidelity, and for me, richer. You can spend an entire day walking from one town to another. Think of everything you will see! Compare this to driving. Driving is like compression. You could drive between the same two towns in less than an hour. You may see many beautiful things while driving, but the experience is fleeting and momentary. You will miss so many details along the way. As always, there are tradeoffs, and you can't walk everywhere or always have these types of mindful experiences. On the other hand, life is short and perhaps paradoxically, slower experiences can yield richer days.
- solnyshok 10mo ago¡Buen Camino! I walked it 10 years ago and hope to repeat it soon.
- colmmacc 10mo agoThere is a great meditation in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about the differences between riding and driving. Being open to the elements, in and a part of nature, is visceral. Bubbled in a car, our surroundings are observed more than experienced. That's always resonated for me.
- joecool1029 10mo agoThat’s a book I’ve been taking my time with. Read a bit every few weeks. Found the part about visual memory mechanics resonated: I have to spread everything out and see it when doing mechanic work. No to doing books via audiobook because I see the words in my head and it’s massively distracting. Cool if it works for others I guess but like the mechanic excerpt above… not for me.
- somat 10mo agoFor the same reason I have decided I don't like fast travel in games. The whole thing becomes this strange distorted reality where the travel nodes and their immediate surroundings are over represented in your mental model but most of the rest of the map is blank. Now I don't think games should get rid of their fast travel systems But I find that enjoy the game world a lot more without them and think every one should try. The first time I did this was the breath of the wild zelda game, I got to the point in the tutorial where they teach you to fast travel and said, "no I don't want to" so I spent the whole game slow traveling around, planing my trips enjoying the scenery finding new routes , Just bumming back and forth across the map enjoying the game and all it's corners in small slices each night, it took me a couple months to get complete and it was great. My current phase of this madness is Valheim with no portals and no map. and wow it is an experience. With no map you get this hyper distorted view of the landscape the other way around, it is still based on what you can navigate easily but stuff like shorelines and terrain features are over represented and forests are these scary black boxes. Fog is very very scary, more than once fog has rolled in and I got so lost that I have had to say "well I guess I am living here now." I am currently having fun trying to figure out how to use the in game tools as surveying instruments to make my own hand drawn maps.
- maximgeorge 10mo ago[dead]
- dsubburam 10mo agoMusic is an interesting case. You can't slow down the consumption of music (you have to let it play at the speed the performer intended), but you can dial up the attention you give it. Listening with headphones, eyes closed, and phone+doorbell etc. switched off would be close to max. Sitting at a live concert (I am thinking classical) is up there too, because you've given yourself permission to not think of/work on anything else in that time. For music, we can say that the default settings are too LOW. And similar to the point OP made, you get more out of it when you attend more closely. And similarly, most music does not withstand this level of scrutiny.
- The_President 10mo agoI've taken the time to rebuild a large music collection locally. I've adopted every CD collection my friends and family have set aside to rust. It's immensely satisfying to scroll a gigantic list of 40,000 tracks and just pick whatever feels good, knowing I'm not contributing to a profile on my listening habits and that the file will instantly play flawlessly. I have some excellent garage band CDs that probably have two or three copies still in the wild at most. Unfortunately sometimes the 25 year old burned CDs are missing the TOC data, but even the recovery process is satisfying. (Same with the DVD collections.)
- nemo1618 10mo agoYou certainly do not need to play music at the speed the performer intended! There are whole genres (and subgenres) based on this. :) Personally, I have found that slowing a familiar piece down by ~5% tricks my brain into perceiving it as novel again, which helps me attend to it more closely and appreciate it more.
- xboxnolifes 9mo agoThem being entire genres, to me, implies they are no longer the same music. You are listening to a different song.
- tetha 9mo agoI was about to comment this as well. I listen to a lot of music on the side, but Chris Boltendahl of Grave Digger said something that stuck with me. Btw, Grave Digger are not making Heavy Metal inspired by Heavy Metal, they were there making Heavy Metal in the 80s :) Paraphrasing: With all of the streaming, and easy access to music, music has turned into a fast food. Eaten on the side, but rarely really fully appreciated this day. And for new albums of bands I follow (or if I want to have a good time), I do exactly that: If the weather permits, get a hammock, a good drink, the good headphones (yes, I have several levels of quality of headphones), and just look at the sun, the trees and the magpies while listening to the music. Improving my own guitar skills has only deepened this appreciation. > Sitting at a live concert (I am thinking classical) is up there too, because you've given yourself permission to not think of/work on anything else in that time At least in Metal and to me, concerts are a different beast than the record. The record is usually the best and most perfect take of a song, often with additional effects, better mix. If you want to hear to the best version of a song, it's usually from the record. Concerts are a party. It's always amusing how different concert cultures are there -- I know of some people who complain that they "can't hear the singer over someone next to them shouting". That's kind of the point of a live celebration of the band at the music in my world.
- THEcrazydev 10mo ago[flagged]
- THEcrazydev 10mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 10mo agoOne of the pleasures of reading literature is noticing how compressed they are. This is true for Tolkien, Turgenev, Hemingway or Pound. The amount of information per page—per word!—is incredibly high, which permits the conveyance of ideas which simply do not land when spoken more plainly. You don’t need to go to high literature to find this density, by the way. Political speeches from Republican Rome and America’s Founders have a similar aspect to them.
- xeonmc 10mo agoAnd presumably political speeches from Republican America combines the best of those two?
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> presumably political speeches from Republican America combines the best of those two? Why?
- FridayoLeary 10mo agoIt's interesting you mention that. Even Obamas detractors admit he spoke well. True, but i find JFKs speeches are on a different level from that. And it's not just him, but the contrast is particularly striking. Now in the UK all we get are monotonous robots or people who have clearly had intensive coaching in how to speak in a clear. Decisive. Direct. Way, to inspire confidence and project competence. The two qualities entirely absent in most of our politicians. The less said about the other side of the pond the better.
- bigstrat2003 10mo ago> Even Obamas detractors admit he spoke well. True, but i find JFKs speeches are on a different level from that. And it's not just him, but the contrast is particularly striking. My off the cuff observation is that there is a lot less mastery of language than there used to be in America. I'm not really sure why, but compare the grand language used by the early political leaders to, say, Obama, and it's striking. And that's not saying Obama is a bad speaker! He has a ton of charisma and makes you want to like his ideas by the way he presents them. But he's never given something on the level of Lincoln's Gettysburg address (in my opinion at least).
- katzgrau 10mo agoI had, by chance, taken the same approach when reading the Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance years ago. The title failed to inspire but I heard it was worth the read and stepped through line by line. It hit with a depth that I know with complete certainty I would not have gotten if I worked through at my usual pace or took it in as an audiobook. Nassim Taleb’s books are also favorite slow reads of mine. All this said, I collect books faster than I can read them so there’s always a feeling somewhere that I should be pushing through a little faster. Ah well, in the end I think that really comprehending a handful of quality books is about as good as a shallow comprehension of many more.
- chihuahua 10mo agoAfter I finished reviewing the CS textbook "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" in the mid 1990s during a vacation (looking for errors before publication), I found that my brain had been permanently reconfigured for speed reading. For years afterwards, I would automatically read entire sentences at a time, to go as fast as possible. I think I have now recovered sufficiently so that I can read books one word at a time.
- cush 10mo agoBeing able to truly tap into boredom is a superpower
- xyzzy_plugh 10mo ago> I’ve found reading aloud helpful for staying engaged — limiting myself to mouth-speed rather than eye-speed means I won’t rush, miss important details, and then lose interest, which has always been a problem for me. This worked for me... for a time. And then what happened surprised me (but maybe shouldn't have): I started zoning out and thinking about other things, missing important details, while reading aloud. Wild that we can even do that.
- neutronicus 10mo agoIt's a capability with which having children will make you intimately familiar
- bell-cot 10mo agoBy the 3rd week of Goodnight Moon at bedtime, are you still reading the printed words?
- Yodel0914 10mo agoI initially thought this was just a function of reading the same thing multiple times, but I’ve since had it happen many times when reading something completely new. Somehow my mind wanders and when I tune back in, not only am I reading clearly, I’m still doing the voicing for different characters. It’s so weird.
- fluoridation 9mo ago
- Wowfunhappy 10mo agoI can't control the speed that I read. In fact, I noticed that whenever a book becomes most exciting, I start reading especially fast (to the point of skipping words), because I want to know what happens next. So I spend the least time with the best parts of the best books. Ever since I realized that, I have switched pretty much exclusively to audiobooks. I don't really know if it's faster or slower overall, but it's a predetermined pace, and that works better for me.
- chihuahua 10mo agoAudiobooks are great, while driving or walking or riding a bike. But for complex topics, I miss the ability to read a sentence or a paragraph again.
- Wowfunhappy 9mo agoThis is definitely a disadvantage of audiobooks, although I’ve found having access to a `skip backwards 15 seconds` button can help a lot. (There was one point during Riyria Revelations where a character was explaining how Elven succession works. After repeating the sequence a bunch of times, I finally had to get out my laptop and take notes.)
- __MatrixMan__ 10mo agoI feel the same way. It goes away if I already know what's going to happen. For this reason I strongly recommend reading the things you love a second time.
- underdeserver 9mo agoHave you made a serious effort to try lately? I think it should be possible for everyone.
- Wowfunhappy 9mo agoYes.
- hx8 9mo ago
- awesome_dude 10mo agoI see that some others have suggested getting an Audio book version for you to listen to at your pleasure. I came here to say "I hope that you are recording yourself so that you create your OWN audiobook"
- skybrian 10mo agoWhen learning to play a musical instrument and practicing a new song, some common advice is to play it as slowly as you can stand, to learn the motions well.
- raylad 10mo agoOr, never play it faster than you can play it perfectly.
- hurflmurfl 10mo agoRight, but then you need to learn the right motions well, motions that will make sense at the final speed. I suppose it's one of those things that are made easier by having a teacher.
- nabbed 10mo agoThis can work with the way you think as well. Many years ago, I had a technical manager who never felt any pressure to be the first to come up with the answer to a question or the solution to some problem. If I was having a technical conversation with him, and we arrived at a particularly subtle or complex issue, he could go completely silent, just staring straight ahead with his fingers to his lips. I would find it very uncomfortable, and I would start blurting out half-baked ideas to fill the silence, but he would either raise his finger or (usually) just ignore me. This could go on for 30-60 seconds, at which point he might shrug and say "I don't know" or, more likely, have a pretty well formed idea of how to move ahead. I used to joke to my co-workers that during those silent interludes, he was swapping in the solution from a remote disk. This manager also typed with one or two fingers, and pretty slowly too. But he wrote a lot of good code.
- godelski 10mo ago> he might shrug and say "I don't know" I have far more trust for people willing to say this. > I would start blurting out half-baked ideas to fill the silence I find that I'm more likely to do this but try to make an effort to stop. There's times to spitball but we should also spend time thinking. And let's be real 30-60s is not that long > This manager also typed with one or two fingers, and pretty slowly too. But he wrote a lot of good code. I'll be honest, this is the big reason I don't get all the hype around coding agents. I do find them useful but typing isn't the bottleneck. Not even close. Plus, while typing is when I'm doing my best debugging and best simplifying.
- bigiain 10mo agoIf shrug-guy is anything like me, he sat there blurting out half-baked ideas and then shooting them down all in his internal monologue, instead of out loud. For me, I sometimes feel like I'm an old school chess engine, exploring as many possible moves/ideas as I can - as many steps into the future as time allows. Constantly evaluating them based on some known-simplified fitness function usually involving pattern recognition from past experience in similar problems. Eventually I arrive at a place where I'm either confident I know a reasonable way forward (and why some of the obvious ways forward are unlikely to be ideal) - or I've scatter-gun searched all of the quickly available ideas and discovered I have no idea if some of them are good or bad, and I need to do much deeper research and investigation of the problem. From the outside, that'd look identical to "he could go completely silent, just staring straight ahead with his fingers to his lips"
- fleebee 10mo agoI suffered a burnout fall last year and adapting to a slower lifestyle was my way out of it. I started reading long novels, and taking aimless, leisurely walks. It's hard to overstate the positive effect that had on my mind and well-being. I haven't felt this kind of mental clarity and motivation to do things for over a decade. This post resonates strongly with me. I strongly believe the default settings _are_ too high, and it takes conscious effort to slow down while bound to the shackles of modern society, but it's so worth it.
- bloovis 10mo ago[dead]
- Ericson2314 10mo agoI'm sympathetic to the general point, but with food, you can always just eat more! Best of both worlds!
- mtoner23 10mo ago????
- Ericson2314 9mo agoIf you read the lord of the rings faster, you run out of lord or the rings sooner — there's no away around this. But if you eat faster, you can just eat more food. You can eat just as long, and end up feeling just as full. There is no need to eat slower to prolong the enjoyment of flavor.
- jackschultz 10mo agoQuote that I always like: There was a man who was afraid of his shadow and disliked his footprints. So he tried to get away from them. He ran, but the faster he ran, the more numerous his footprints became, and his shadow kept up with him without lagging behind. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster, until he collapsed and died of exhaustion. He did not realize that if he had simply stayed in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared, and if he had sat still, there would have been no footprints. And another one [0]: My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest; Every year the green ivy grows longer. No news of the affairs of men, Only the occasional song of a woodcutter. The sun shines and I mend my robe; When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems. I have nothing to report, my friends. If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things. [0] https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/06/stop-chasing-after-so-many-things.html https://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2011/06/stop-chasing...
- didgetmaster 10mo agoIf you are bilingual, with one language being stronger than the other one; try reading something in the language you are least comfortable with. I do this (e.g. reading LoTR in Dutch) and it forces me to pay closer attention to each sentence. There are words you don't know or know how to use them properly. It will help you learn the second language better, while also helping you to not gloss over whole passages.
- robocat 9mo ago> try reading something in the language you are least comfortable with I did this with Spanish and it was terrible for learning grammar because things tended to be transliterated from English however I found it good for learning vocab. I chose really trashy romance novels translated from English e.g. Danielle Steel. \* they tended to use more colloquialisms \* simple plots, so easy to read \* useful words \* often transliterated directly from English so easiest forms of grammar I tried some literature but that was a bad idea (too complex for beginner, and faaar too boring). I just don't like the Spanish literature I have tried reading. I also found it screwed up my Spanish pronunciation and had a queer side-effect that it permanently slowed down my English reading. Personally, I think languages should be learnt by talking and mimicking (as much like a baby as possible). Reading is worthwhile for work but I expect to be more careful for the next language I learn.
- hibikir 10mo agoI'd argue that the issue isn't that the default is too high, but that we assume the default. Think a math class: Often enough, kids are left behind, because the pace is too high, but others get bored to tears, because for them, that very same pace is far too slow. It can even vary by unit: Maybe someone is fine at standard speed in most of AP physics, and just one unit is just completely off. It's a typical problem when engaging with varied audiences: If you have to give a talk to , say, an all hands of a tech company, getting the pacing and the information density right for everyone is just not going to happen. So the main learning is to be aware of the speed settings, and then consider putting ourselves in situations where we can alter them. Faster or slower isn't better in a vacuum. Expermiment and find what's right for you, or, in communication, for your audience.
- JSR_FDED 10mo agoWhat worked for us professionally, voraciously taking in information, might be less effective going forward. Being more judicious in consuming fewer, high-quality sources of content is likely to work better in the age of AI slop.
- scrame 10mo agoSeriously, we're just posting self-help grifters now?
- Yodel0914 10mo agoThere was nothing grifter-ish about this article that I could detect - what are you seeing that I’m missing?
- trevor-e 10mo agoThis was the same epiphany I had in college when I learned how to actually study. Previously I would try to go fast and cram as much as possible into my head and hope my decent memory could save me. That only got me so far. I eventually realized that slowing down to fully comprehend what I was learning before allowing myself to move on yielded much better results and saved a lot more time in the long run. And as a result my grades shot up.
- pcmaffey 10mo agoStories don’t exist on paper or even on screen. They exist in the space in between words in your mind.
- stephen_cagle 10mo agotldr; I found something similar when I forced myself to slow down on "The Wheel of Time" series recently. I've been reading the Wheel of Time (started by Robert Jordan, ended by Brandon Sanderson). I'm on book 11 currently. I've found something similar in that the Jordan's later books in the WOT are basically just incredible slogs if you read for completion (which, I myself did around 20 years ago at around book 10, where I stopped). Around book 6 or so I purposely slowed down and started really imagine the scenes in my minds eye. I also keep the map open on my phone and just kind of keep note of where they are at different points in the series. Obvious, but it is really striking how much better his books are when you try to "live in the moment" of your imagination as you read, rather than reading to move the plot and action forward. I was kind of confused with myself when I reflected on it. That I somehow thought it made more sense to skim through an entire series and take reduced pleasure from something, when I could just take 50% longer and actually enjoy it. Made me wonder about where else I am doing this in my life. I still thinks these books are radically overpadded. He was clearly in love with his characters and his setting. He needed the guidance of a strong armed editor imho. With all that said, if you are going to commit to reading a massive series like this, you might as well appreciate it in the moment, you are going to be here a while.
- niccl 10mo agoThis is one of the things I actually remember my mother saying. Festina lente [0]: Make haste slowly. I've always tried to stick to it because when I have I've found more to appreciate in whatever I'm doing (as TFA says) Sadly, for some reason I now can't read slowly, which pisses me off. I and my partner read aloud together alternating chapters of a chosen book, and I love how get _much_ more out of the book than I would reading alone in a tenth of the time. I've also found that some books seem written to be read aloud: the sentence structure and punctuation lends itself to easy reading aloud, whereas some books have really convoluted sentences with multiple parenthetical sub-clauses that are a real challenge to read aloud in an a way that's easy to follow. I've ended up so that normally try to write in a way that's easy to read aloud. I think if something's easy to read aloud it's going to be easy to comprehend when read normally. And Yes, I know that the sentence at the beginning of the paragraph probably doesn't match that. 0: (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/festina%20lente https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/festina%20lente)
- snowwrestler 10mo agoThis is why I re-read books. I’ve read the Lord of the Rings probably like 10 times. When I already know what’s going to happen it’s easier for me to slow down and appreciate the scenery along the way. Even later readings might reveal choices the author made; I can start to see how the story was constructed. I find this approach rewarding across most forms of media. There plenty of movies and music I’ve revisited over and over again.
- JKCalhoun 10mo agoWhen I was younger I also re-read The Lord of the Rings perhaps a dozen times. Each reading did seem to land differently—small details I had not noticed the first n times. For some reason the first half of the first book appealed to me the most. I liked the leaving, the setting out on an adventure that you know not where it will lead you. After Rivendell the hobbits no longer seemed to be driving.
- spicyusername 10mo agoIt might sound like I’m just offering clichés – less is more, stop and smell the roses, take your time – and I guess I am. But clichés suffer the same issue: they are often profound insights, consumed and passed on too rapidly for their real meaning to register anymore. You really should stop and smell roses, as you know if you’re in the habit of doing that. Great quote
- dbacar 10mo agoWhat were you expecting, when all al the system forced you to buy more, consume fast and die hard ? The author just scratches the surface.
- fkarg 10mo agoThe base material needs to be of a minimum quality for that experience to be enjoyable, I presume. I totally see the value of that, which is one of the reasons to sometimes reduce playback speed below what my default would be. Writings from Tolkien are maybe some of the best suited for that, but I'm not 100% convinced it would work for what I'm reading currently, so I might just try it anyway - the Foundation series from Asimov.
- zdc1 9mo agoGreat article. Living and enjoying life is a skill that needs conscious practice and intentionality. The title would make more sense as the default settings being "too low" since Low is the setting where when we trade off fidelity for speed, but "too high" has a nice ring to it.
- Tepix 9mo agoThis us why I consider sailing to be the best way of travelling the world: You're slow to begin with and the wind dictates your plans. You really don't want to be motoring. Instead you have time to experience the land, the people and the ocean. Preferably without being online constantly.
- ervine 9mo agoThis is why I love cycling so much.
- Tepix 9mo agoI'm wondering if using an electric caravan is a similarly good option for slow travelling on land. It would force you to you stop after less than 300 kilometers, unfold the solar panels on the roof, wait a day or two (perhaps also catch some rain using the roof) and then continue. Another, less romantic option would be to recharge it somewhere faster ;-)
- throwfaraway135 9mo agoI think this is reading using System 2 instead of System 1. And as System 2 is much more detail oriented, it makes sense that you would notice a lot more.
- zonghao 9mo agoWhen I use Claude Code and Codex for development, I've had some similar experiences. Claude Code always completes tasks very quickly, but leaves behind a mess that makes me anxious. Codex, on the other hand, is always slow—it slowly reads through the entire project's code, then makes changes very cautiously, testing and verifying after every small modification, and even calls codex review --uncommitted once more before committing. At first, I found writing code with Claude Code to be enjoyable, while Codex seemed boring. But over time, I've discovered that I actually prefer Codex. Perhaps slowing down really is the key to writing high-quality code.
- throw310822 9mo ago> When you slow down your eating speed, say to half or a third your default speed, you get much more enjoyment out of a smaller amount of food. The extra attention given to each bite allows more of the “good stuff,” whatever that is exactly, to reach you. I wonder if this contributes to a good chunk of the experience of fine dining. When you get served expensive food in micro-portions that are accompanied by long explanations, you don't gobble it down but take as much time as possible to savour it.
- jimkleiber 9mo agoFor a while I've thought so many of us are afraid to slow down because we might feel sad, as sadness is often one of the slowest emotions. Yet this quote has me thinking that maybe we fear slowing down because of the consciousness overload. That we get so overwhelmed by our senses. Maybe even that can lead to the tears of being so alive.
- ultratalk 9mo agoI feel like this advice could also somewhat apply to your manner of speaking. I'm a pretty fast speaker, and I've noticed that when I try my best to go slower, I understand what I'm trying to say better, I figure out gaps in logic and errors in the sentence while speaking, instead of after, and I get the message across better. And when I'm giving an impromptu speech of some sort, if I slow down and think about every sentence I say, the sentences stitch themselves together in a better-flowing way, and I enjoy speaking because it sounds better.
- amunozo 9mo agoI, too, speak ridiculously fast. People laugh at me and some (a lot of) people have problems understanding me. As much as I try, as soon as I am not paying attention I speak at the same pace again. Did you manage to slow down your speech consistently?
- gste 9mo agoBy coincidence I also finished The Fellowship of the Ring about two weeks ago. I have always had the intuition about reading speed that it is very easy to be a speed reader if you skim over things. I've always questioned how much of speed reading is just skipping stuff and filtering for the most important word tokens. You could skip all of Tolkien's scenery descriptions, you could skip Tom Bombadil and Lothlorien and still know basically what happened to Frodo and where he's going. But that's not really the point. When I read a book of that much importance, I've always read every word and understood every sentence. I get easily distracted and often have to reread passages. I am not a fast reader. Tolkien's descriptions are not always that easy. But this is what I find so rewarding about reading in the first place. However, when I'm reading an article online, the difference is stark. When I read articles, I usually start from the bottom and read backwards. That's my way of finding out the results, and then piecing together how much context I actually need to understand it. Maybe I should slow that down sometimes.
- delis-thumbs-7e 9mo agoAlthough people think LoTR as a novel meant for younger people, it certainly is not an Tolkien never meant it that way and it certainly is not an easy text. It is far more complex than any fantasy I have ever come across. Tolkien was a top language scholar who spoke several even dead languages, so there’s a lot more going on than just the surface plot of Frodo “returning” Bilbo’s ring. One would be mad to simply skim it through.
- notahacker 9mo ago> Tolkien was a top language scholar who spoke several even dead languages, so there’s a lot more going on than just the surface plot of Frodo “returning” Bilbo’s ring. If you want to see it then way Tolkien saw it, probably the best way is to get through all that unimportant stuff involving rings and battles as quickly as possible to get to the appendices where Tolkein spent his time thinking about the history and etymology and even neat little details like how the calendar worked in the Shire... (I'm only half joking)
- jahnu 9mo ago
- delis-thumbs-7e 9mo agoI don’t know any specific name for it, but it is fairly common reading technique used in literary analysis. If you ready any kind of poetry more refined (say [1] or [2]) in its internal structure, it is an absolute necessity. It is quite amazing how many people do not know that there is a multitude of reading techniques to be used with various kinds of texts. You need to use a right tool for the job. Tolkien’s passages describing the Middle Earths ecological landscape are particularly rich calling for careful reading and lingual analysis. I believe he uses almost sole old Celtic words in those passages, avoiding any newer latin-based words more familiar to a modern reader, which cannot be a coincidence. [1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46452/to-an-athlete-dying-young https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46452/to-an-athlete-d... [2] https://poets.org/poem/having-coke-you https://poets.org/poem/having-coke-you
- copirate 9mo ago> When you slow down your eating speed, say to half or a third your default speed, you get much more enjoyment out of a smaller amount of food. That's not always the case. With certain types of food, it's much more enjoyable to have your mouth full than to eat a small amount, for example. It's a trade-off. It's the same with a story. Taking too long can make it boring, for example. That doesn't mean we always choose the optimal balance, though.
- criddell 9mo agoLoTR isn’t for me, so reading it slowly wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience. There are other books for me where I found myself reading and re-reading, moving through the book slowly, marveling at text wondering how the author managed to pick perfect word after perfect word. For some books, faster is better. Neuromancer, for example, has a lot of sentences and paragraphs that if I go slowly, I can’t figure out what it is that Gibson is talking about. But if I go fast, I pick up the vibe and things start to make sense.
- m12k 9mo agoThis almost reads like the beginning of a mathematical proof of Zen: As the speed with which you pursue satisfaction asymptotically approaches zero, your state of mind asymptotically approaches enlightenment.
- paperpunk 9mo agoTangential but when reading books like Lord of the Rings with songs periodically written in the text, I’ve always enjoyed trying to sing the songs out loud and set a melody for them that feels appropriate for the universe. It really makes the songs come alive.
- gnull 9mo agohttps://youtu.be/V4TXg69kfo8?t=977 https://youtu.be/V4TXg69kfo8?t=977 Reminds me of this speech by Leon Wieseltier.
- rozab 9mo agoIn one of his essays, Philip Pullman suggested reading Paradise Lost out loud which was a revelation for me. I never considered reading anything out loud for myself but it changes the nature of the experience entirely. Tolkien recorded some passages of LoTR on a friend's tape recorder while it was still unpublished, I'd highly recommend checking them outz particularly the Ride of the Rohirrim.
- sfy 9mo agoI've tried reading fast, I've tried reading slow, The text escapes my mind, As soon as I let it go.
- brador 9mo agoI watched game of thrones at 2x speed. I feel I watched it but have no concrete memories of events outside the big hit makers.
- udfalkso 9mo agoWhen I was meditating regularly I found this easier to do. I had the presence of mind to notice I was rushing and slow down and focus on the details. I need to start meditating again.
- mathattack 9mo agoThe best books improve with rereading and slower reading. Tolkien fits this. I had an English teacher who reread LOTR every summer. I’m not there, but I am on a 5ish year cycle. Most books are the other way. Zoom through and you can get most of the value. This is especially true of non-fiction, where most have a message that can be gleaned in 15 minutes. (The exceptions are the great ones) Podcasts are similar. Most give you 80% of the value at 2X speed. Even my favorites - I’d rather speed listen to get 80% the value rather than get 100% of half the backlog. The best podcasts defy this too. So in the end it’s a bit of a skill to both choose the right things to slow down on, and then a discipline to force the appropriate speed.
- puchatek 9mo agoI can only read at mouth speed. I'm pronouncing each word in my head. I wished I could go fast sometimes. Finishing books takes me at least twice as long as it does for my wife.
- ErigmolCt 9mo agoLove the idea that speed reshapes taste. When you slow down, a lot of "content" reveals itself as empty, and better stuff suddenly becomes accessible instead of intimidating
- docmars 9mo agoI wish the AI tech giants would adopt the same thinking and let us breathe for a change.
- teiferer 9mo agoI've always taken issue with youtube clips content creators automatically (?) cutting pauses between words or people listening to podcasts in 1.5x or 2x speed or even clips already being sped up. Folks, your brain can't keep up. It may feel great to rush through 10 hours of audio book in 5 hours, or dopamine-pushing even higher if you don't have pauses in that triggering tiktok clip, but it just makes you more and more superficial. Your brain needs time to process and reflect. The best speakers out there have a calm pace, not a rushing one. That's for a reason, and it's an excellent one.
- Zacharias030 9mo agoSkimmed through it; mostly reading the paragraphs above each picture. The irony of which is not lost on me :) Really enjoyed the part talking about Tolkien. It reminds me of my own LOTR experience: I finished the trilogy in three consecutive summers in the hilly countryside of Italy near Rome. The first summer I made it through the fellowship of the ring with a lot of patience and trying for the slower moving parts. The summer after that I started over and read book 1 and 2, and in year three I felt I was finally in sync with the pace of the book and enjoyed reading through book 1, 2, and 3 in a few weeks.
- AmeerHamzaname 9mo agowhat is the real casing
- torginus 9mo agoIs it just me, but seeing the general layout of the site, I feel a powerful sense of nostalgia - as if its something straight out of the mid 2000s to early 10s era of internet.
- stigok 9mo agoI think of this when I brush my teeth and realize I'm trying to be fast. I am tense and rapid, just rushing ahead to nowhere. I'm not really in a hurry. It is also possible to walk at incredible low speeds. Some times, I try to force myself to walk as slowly as I dear. It is hard to walk slow in a city full of people. It feels silly. However, it feels great once you've actually slowed down.
- nilsherzig 9mo agoAlright let’s put that article into eleven labs to hear it as an ai audiobook on 2x speed while doing chores. Gotta optimize bro
- PeterStuer 9mo agoReading aloud is for me the surefire way to not retaining a single word after done.
- grig0r 9mo agoZooming in on the 4th dimension
- dmcollado 9mo agoMy default reading speed has always been slow AF. I've always wished I could read faster. But now I'm going to look at it more as a feature, not a bug. Thanks!! If only I could eat as slowly as I read...
- efreak 9mo agoThis window refused to load until I allowed it to load Facebook. Somewhere, somehow, the content in this page will not display if the browser cannot connect to Facebook servers (I'm using Harmonic HN client on Android; it has built-in adblock for the webviews, but I use Tracker Control to block even more trackers; in this case whitelisting connect.facebook.net allowed the page to load)