Early Retirement Extreme Forums

The Anti Reading List

All successful investors read a lot. It's a common denominator you'll find among most smart people. Charlie Munger once said, "In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time – none, zero."

But all good ideas can be taken too far. Reading is one of them.

Reading is powerful because it opens your mind up to new ideas you hadn't thought of before. We're all a little malleable in that way. But this can be equally dangerous if you're reading nonsense, bull, drivel, gossip, or other stuff that opens your mind up in ways you'll eventually regret. There's an important difference between "reading lots of stuff from a variety of fields" and "reading every word in front of my eyes."

Every reader needs a filter

What topics don't pass your filter?

From least likely to most likely:
Poetry (never)
Sports (never)
Celebrity/TV (almost never)
Blogs (not really anymore)
Fiction (when recommended)
Non-fiction (when recommended)
Original work/papers (when following leads)
Economic/international news (daily)
Textbooks (mostly)
Technical books (mostly)

I usually don't like the "stories" of famous people or organisations. The fact that someone is a famous tennis player, or a politician, or Google, does not make their childhood memories or other personal facts any more interesting or useful or relevant than those of the average person. I prefer personal experience first and fiction second for the purpose of trying to understand the human condition. Also, survivorship bias.

henrik wrote:I usually don't like the "stories" of famous people or organisations. The fact that someone is a famous tennis player, or a politician, or Google, does not make their childhood memories or other personal facts any more interesting or useful or relevant than those of the average person. I prefer personal experience first and fiction second for the purpose of trying to understand the human condition. Also, survivorship bias.

times 100. brute is not sure which he can stand less - humans who are narcissistic enough to believe their life is interesting, or humans dumb enough to think they can learn from reading it.

I like Eleonor Roosevelt's maxim, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people,” and also substitute "read about" for "discuss". But then I see an interesting story about Trump voters or the big-boobed girl wearing the tube-top who got stuck in an elevator and I lament my tiny, tiny little mind.

There should be a better choice of different words for the way the mind approaches or processes the written word. I don't read a poem in the same manner that I read a newspaper or a light novel or a historical tome or a textbook. I don't think there is anything that would be inherently harmful for me to read, because I am perfectly capable of the skim and/or dismiss mode of processing. OTOH, I sometimes make myself read outside of my comfort zone in order to stretch my mind. If I come to the realization that I am being very "green eggs and ham" about anything then that is what I should read next. For instance, I learned a few things from reading conservative Christian romance novels. At the moment, I am so horrified by what is happening politically, I have been avoiding reading the news, so I should probably start reading it again.

Anybody who expresses themselves with certainty, especially if accompanied by drama. The more certainty and drama, the more the reason to discount.

I won't automatically exclude reading anything, but I might not read it for very long. The worst reading habit anyone can have is feeling compelled to finish bad books/writings, especially when you can probably find a five minute internet summary.

I will read most things, but I have to be in the right mood for that specific thing. I generally cannot make myself read.

I don't enjoy reading about violence and avoid it wherever possible. I will force myself to do it in the case of important current events, but when suffering is sensationalized - and it generally is, these days - I begin to hate the author.

I don't enjoy reading opinion pieces from people whose views exactly coincide with mine. Echo chambers are dangerous, and such pieces always leave me feeling psychologically vulnerable. There must be something I/we are missing... what is it? I hate that feeling so much that when I find a piece that sounds like something I would have written if asked to opine, I usually go seek out an opposing piece to quiet my mind.

@Dragline and ffj - I think I resemble those remarks

You're no Shakespeare on the drama, that's for sure.

You didn't even spice it up with some mystery mentor narrative. I wanted to hear about "Grandpa ERE".

Einstein said something about how past a certain point reading was for the lazy/non thinkers.

I spend too much time on the net. Wish I had more control. Even coming back here, for example. Now I have the idea, why hang out in the forums? There isn't that much new insight. Maybe it's to help stay the course. But I would be better off spending the time refining or enjoying.

Did wrote:Einstein said something about how past a certain point reading was for the lazy/non thinkers.

I spend too much time on the net. Wish I had more control. Even coming back here, for example. Now I have the idea, why hang out in the forums? There isn't that much new insight. Maybe it's to help stay the course. But I would be better off spending the time refining or enjoying.

Try a 7 day fast.
Only visit the ERE forums/fav blog/fav media/fav entertainment site once per week and see how much you've missed.

You'll find it's rarely a lot.
So when you DO visit, you have much better time to comment and digest the information, because you've automatically set time aside for that activity. It's the same idea as reading your email ONLY at 9am and 3pm so you don't spend all day as an email-answering machine.

Make Sunday you ERE day, Wednesday your reddit day, and Friday your news day and you'll find yourself with even MORE spare time, and higher quality time with your chosen media.

Either that, or address why you don't have more control. Is there a barrier (mental or physical) to the things you'd truly rather be doing?

@Fbyer All good ideas. Ferris used to check his email once a week. Now he has one day off all devices a week.

Never read Ferris. I'm just trying to optimize my work as well as my leisure. One of my closest superiors have no real concept of work-time optimization so I spend a lot of time discussing those things with him. In turn it's helped me to consider a lot of my other habits.

Implementing an Information Diet greatly helped me consider my digital habits, in much the same way KonMari helped me consider my posessions and how YMOYL helped me consider my spending habits.

I'm sure many of you have seen this elsewhere:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/charles-warnk ... who-reads/

I have come full circle, started reading fiction regularly, stopped to only acquire knowledge from reading; and have restarted reading fiction as there is just not much left in general knowledge that i do not know.

"@Fbyer All good ideas. Ferris used to check his email once a week."

I do this now, well every three days; or people start bitching at me that expect me to check email as often as most do.