How To Understand More of What You Read

We aren't thinking about what we read in the right ways, because school teaches you the exact opposite. It's all linear thinking, which I think is a type of disease that destroys any desire for enlightenment.

the most profound thinkers understand that knowledge doesn't look like my 6th year Geography notes copy, it looks like a spider's web.

The biggest issue that comes from trying to learn everything you read equally is cognitive overload.

Cognitive overload occurs when your brain becomes overwhelmed with information and it needs time to process it.

A book is a mental model that an author explains through words, paragraphs, pages, and carefully structured chapters, all in a linear way. But real knowledge is non-linear, and it's your job as a profound reader to read between the lines, in order to discover what this mental model might look like in a way that makes the most sense to you.

Cognitive overload is a signal from your mind that you've consumed enough information.

Most people completely miss this signal and keep reading on. Just like trying to pour water into an already overflowing glass. The information just spills out without any retention or understanding.

This leverages the hypercorrection effect: your brain remembers corrections more powerfully than information you passively absorbed. You're basically setting yourself up to be surprised, and surprise creates stronger neural pathways along with more active engagement through increased focus.

hypercorrection effect. You are more likely to remember something you've been corrected on, than if you got it right in the first place.

If you feel cognitive overload, don't think that more reading is the solution. Do less reading and more thinking. Think and question so you can integrate what you've consumed into your sea of knowledge inside your head.