2025-01-30 • no tags • 286 words
(This is entry 82 of 100DaysToOffload)
This is a... not quite response, but some additional comments I wrote down when reading this work by Ismatu Gwendolyn. I have copied this up from my notebook.
... books as a means to truly understand. A takeaway: if you can remember the substance of a book you read two years ago, how not a video?
I would imagine it comes down to meditative practice. The book is read and meditated upon over at least several days, and so sticks in the mind. A short video, re-watched to that extent, can also stick. I have now heard Losing my Religion so oft it sticks well.
Video is not inherently bad, rather, a lack of focused meditation on the art is. If I observe a painting for five seconds, it won't stick. IF I do it for an hour, it shall.
A screen does in a way detract from focused meditation: it is fashioned in a way to distract. Naturally of course this can be circumvented to some degree, but it is harder, requiring partly (in-)action of the user, and amending the default. The book is by default a tool for meditation.
... This reminds. I'm not sure on whether to do one thing at a time, or multiple. To do only one allows focus on the thing itself. I would say, when reading, it ought consume and occupy the mind entirely, and no allowance be made for anything else. This (as in the above read essay) requires exertion; a screen extracts such by default.
Yet, for example, when weight-training, little focus needs to be placed on the motion: it is hardly cognitively challenging. To put some podcast, or sermonic speech, on in the background (as throwaway media) or not?