The Practical Benefits of Reading and Rereading More

This Week’s BIG Idea

Sometimes when I go over the collection of books I have on my Kindle, I ask myself a few questions. What do I want to learn about? I think that’s an important question because it implies that there are many things I don’t know about and learning about them has some benefits. By reading books, I can take action and that soon translates to habits that have the potential to change the direction of my life. This sounds extreme but it’s happened before. Books helped me start certain habits, such as eating healthy food, sleeping better, and launching an online business. Don’t underestimate habits because they can change the direction of your life.

Another important question I recently started asking myself is: What do I want to relearn about? I spend so much learning about new things that I don’t want to forget about the foundations. As weird as it sounds, sometimes you need to go back to move forward. For this purpose, I’ve been rereading some of my favorite books. Some books are definitive because they give you the sense that no other book can teach you anything new about a given topic. Books that fall into this category include Atomic Habits, The Psychology of Money, The 4-Hour Workweek, and Essentialism.

Every year, I have a couple of books that are so important to me that I want to reread them. I know I’ve written summaries of all those books and that it would be easier to read the summary instead of the entire book again. In fact, I go back to my summaries more often than I’d like to admit. That said, I have a great time rereading books and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  

What I’m Working on

I’ve been focusing on my SEO (search engine optimization) strategy for 2024. When I first started the site more than two years ago, I developed a simple system to deal with SEO. This involved planning keywords and optimizing keywords, but for the most part, I ignored the technical aspect and I focused on what I wanted to read. That’s great, but if I want the site to succeed, I can’t ignore the technical side of things anymore. I won’t bore anyone with details here, but as dull as it sounds, SEO is an essential part of running a website. I’ve written book summaries on the topic before if you’re interested. 

What I’m Listening to

Tim Ferriss on Solving Problems with People and Using Stoicism To Make Better Decisions: I could listen to interviews like this for hours and hours. Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday have recorded podcasts together before. Although it doesn’t seem like this episode brings anything new to the table, it’s a reminder of the basic tenets of Stoicism and the advantages it brings to anyone’s life.

What I’m Reading

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang: I’ve been trying to learn more about Japan for some time. There are numerous books about Japan, but most of them are fact-based travel guides or focus on a topic I’m already familiar with like anime or ikigai. As I was researching books, I came across The Rape of Nanking, a brutal massacre of more than 300,000 Chinese people by the Japanese army. Although this is an incredibly difficult book to read, I think it’s an important one nonetheless.

What I’m Watching

Why 2D Animation HAD to Die: I find myself thinking about 2D animation often. When I was a kid, most movies and television shows used a technique known as cel animation. Cel animation (hand-drawing on celluloid sheets that would later be painted) had two main drawbacks that became even more apparent when 3D animation became a thing: it was incredibly time-consuming and expensive. It also looked amazing.

As the video explains, traditional animation became less and less popular when Toy Story came out because the Pixas movie proved that you could make a great-looking CGI film that people wanted to watch. Nowadays, few studios in the world are capable of producing films and shows with traditional animation. Even when they can, computers are an integral part of the process. I don’t want to sound like the typical old guy fond of olden times who wishes everything went back to the way things were. I just wished 3D movies could coexist with 2D movies. When I look at movies from the '80s and '90s, it’s not just nostalgia that invades every fiber of my being, it’s also a deep respect for an art that’s everything but lost in this day and age.

This Week’s Quote

"If you want a recipe for unhappiness, spend your time accumulating a lot of money and let your health and relationships deteriorate."

James Clear

Here’s a link to my website where I share chapter-by-chapter summaries of non-fiction books.