I have reflected on my approach to reading this week. In doing so, I came across an article from one of the few blogs I check on a semi-regular basis and have been chewing on its contents over the past few days. This missive incorporates from the whole piece, but focuses on a few sentences (helpfully bolded in the original): Read old books. Read the best ones twice.

When it comes to knowledge, time is the greatest filter. What is useful is remembered, what is not is forgotten. To survive for more than a few years (or sometimes even months), a book must have something real. It need not have more than a single core idea, but that idea must have substance. Even if the examples are no longer relevant, the idea still matters. Those are the books I want to absorb. As an aside, allowing the filter of time to work its magic is also why I gave up reading the news a few years ago, a decision that continues to bewilder some but one upon which I have no intention of reneging.

I plan to begin this new course by re-reading books I have already read, or more realistically re-reading the bits I highlighted or underlined when I read them the first time. After all, returning to the highlights is why I made the effort in the first place. I still haven’t gotten to the point of feeling comfortable writing my own notes and summaries in books—one step at a time.

With my fiction reading, I am taking a different approach as it serves a different purpose. It is more for entertainment and helping me wind down and get to sleep. Even there, though, I am steering away from the newest books and allowing time to filter for quality. Now I just need to cut out some of the mindless YouTube videos so that I may set upon the path, something easier said than done after the many hours I have spent on that particular platform over the past month.