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Comment by katsume3 | Hacker News Reader

The Internet has changed how I assimilate knowledge. It has wired my brain to pay attention to soundbites, rather than lofty tomes. This is why I am the proud owner of a large list of various short proverbs & idioms that I have gathered over the years via social media. I only collect the ones that help me in some way and discard anything that doesn't resonate with me. One example is this phrase by Lao Tzu

    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_...

In every book, you can find little kernels of truth and can distill many larger points made in a book, down to helpful and short gems of wisdom. For me this is how I can take a shortcut and avoid reading ridiculous amounts of books!

Does anyone else do this?

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Do you find that boiling everything down to a soundbite or small phrase helps you improve your critical thinking and logical reasoning skills? Or do you find it is valuable just for the dopamine hit and feel-goods of cementing your already established worldviews and perspectives?

The reason I read books is because the author's perspectives are, often, wildly different from mine. Because of this difference, it helps me understand other people, and understand my own actions.

I feel like taking everything down to one-liners and ignoring "anything that doesn't resonate" is just avoiding the real work of thinking about yourself and your place in society. For example - Lao Tzu's perspectives about technology and how to balance external desires with my own personal views on how to integrate technology into my life have been immensely helpful in raising a family - I'm not sure I would've gotten that with just soundbites.

> is just avoiding the real work of thinking about yourself and your place in society

Well sometimes idioms / proverbs can contradict each other. Take for example the Russian proverb

    If you try chasing two rabbits, you will end up catching none

Does this mean I have to be singularly focused on one task all the time, and not multitask? Hardly.

There are other quotes which challenge that proverb and inspire us to be multitaskers and 'do all the things' at the same time.

As I stated: my brain can't cope with a lofty tome, and prefers soundbites. It's how I'm wired, and I leverage that. I also integrate these proverbs into family life and use them as a guide, no different than reading loads of books. But horses for courses; if reading loads of books suits you, then do it!

No, but I definitely _want_ to have something like this.

Do you have this collected somewhere in a share-able form? How do you keep it up-to-date?

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