An Ode To Dense Books

The first dense book I ever read was Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It probably took me 4 years to finish. During that time I read a lot of other books but I just couldn’t sustain Thinking, Fast and Slow for long and I’d always put it down in favor of something easier to read.

The reason I never gave up on it though was because it was gifted to me by a close colleague and mentor. And even though he’d never know if I finished it, I wanted to prove to him through way of the universe that I valued him and his recommendation. It turned out to be one of the most life changing books I’ve ever read.

While the majority of the book went over my simple minded and mildly intelligent brain, the main concept stuck, and still influences my life every day. That concept is that everyone has two systems. System 1 and System 2. System 1 is your innate gut reaction to a stimuli, the response to an action that you give without thinking about the consequences, most times regret, and is emotional. System 2 is your calculated response. It’s the more logical response you form after taking a breath, and counting to 3.

Working on emboldening my System 2 and bypassing my System 1 has changed my life.

But aside from that great lesson came the great accomplishment of reading such an influential book. I feel such pride whenever I hear intellects and scholars I look up to reference Daniel Kahneman’s book. I don’t know anyone in my personal life that has ever read it and it remains one of the most important works of psychology ever published.

Reading dense books are important. Because while they are difficult to get through, there are so many lessons they offer. I recently finished The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker. It took me 18 months to get through. It was far denser than I anticipated it would be.

The reason I picked up The Language Instinct was to see if it could help me learn a second language. Ever since middle school I’ve been trying to become fluent in Spanish. But aside from a couple of long stints in South America where I was able to practice, fluency has eluded me, and always regressed back to my rudimentary understanding of the language after returning home.

A few months before learning about The Language Instinct I started to think that maybe I needed to take a different approach. That perhaps there was something to language in general that I was missing, and if I knew it it would allow me to unlock my brains ability to become fluent or at least improve.

Sadly my Spanish is no better after reading it, however in the same way that Thinking, Fast and Slow changed how I choose to respond, The Language Instinct changed my approach to reading, writing, and communicating in ways that I never anticipated. In the end my understanding of English got an unexpected boost.

Here’s one such example from the book that changed the way I think about writing. 

“If a speaker is interrupted at a random point in a sentence, there are on average about ten different words that could be inserted at that point to continue the sentence in a grammatical and meaningful way.”

This was significant to me because so often when writing I’d hit a brick wall mid-sentence believing that there could only be one word that could continue the sentence, and more times than not I couldn’t think of it. But learning that there were in fact 10 different possibilities gave me permission to think outside of the box. Just knowing that more than one option existed was enough to make me rack my brain until I found the word that made sense.

The Language Instinct also improved my understanding of sentence structure and it’s importance. As Steven Pinker describes it, “Only a few items… can be held in the mind at once, and the items are immediately subject to fading or being overwritten.” He then provides a few examples to drive home the point. As the reader you can feel the sentence slipping away as you read.

“He gave the girl that he met in New York while visiting his parents for ten days around Christmas and New Year’s the candy,” and,

“She saw the matter that had caused her so much anxiety in former years when she was employed as an efficiency expert by the company through.”

He also provides the correct way to structure these sentences.

“He gave the candy to the girl that he met in New York while visiting his parents for ten days around Christmas and New Year’s,” and,

“She saw the matter through that had caused her so much anxiety in former years when she was employed as an efficiency expert by the company.”

An easier to follow example is as follows,

“Reverse the clamp that the stainless steel hex-head bolt extending upward from the seat post yoke holds in place,” which becomes,

“Reverse the clamp that is held in place by the stainless hex-head bolt extending upward from the seat post yoke.”

At times the book is also playful, like when he makes fun of so called “language mavens,” self described experts of language who have made a career of calling out “bad writing.” In this example he is speaking about a film and theater critic who has made a career of outlandish reviews such as this:

“The English language is being treated nowadays exactly as slave trader once handled the merchandise in their slave ships, or as the inmates of concentration camps were dealt with by their Nazi jailers.”

But my favorite were the examples of the contradictory nature of the English language that are at once entertaining and informative. They take the seriousness out of composing the perfect sentence, choosing the right words, and making it all grammatically correct. Such as: “How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?”

The Language Instinct is the type of dense book that I used to shy away from and never finish. I’ve often heard the advice “read what you like until you like to read.” While it’s hard to disagree with that advice, I think there’s also tremendous value to reading outside of your comfort zone.

Reading is like any skill. The more challenging the input, the better you’re going to become. In weight training we call this progress overload. In this case a dense book is like adding weights or reps to your sets. Rather than strengthening your muscles you’ll become a better read. Being a better reader will expand what you read, how often you read, and grow your knowledge as a result.

That’s what dense books have done for me. They’ve made me a better reader, thinker, writer, and communicator. They’ve also improved my ability to stay focused and complete a tough task. It’s an easy, effective, cheap, and accessible way to improve your mind.

The Language Instinct is another Thinking, Fast and Slow for me. While there were a lot of concepts I missed, and connections I couldn’t make, when things were clicking I was amazed at what I was learning. Merchants of Doubt is the latest tough read I’m working through. I suspect it’ll be another 12 - 18 months before I’m able to close it for good.

Dense books offer big rewards for those that choose to read and finish them.

The Comfort Crisis Reveals the Importance of Intuition

They say that the key to life is being happy. But what exactly does that entail? Ask 1,000 people and you might get 1,000 different answers. It’s been my belief recently that happiness boils down to the ability to listen to and follow your intuition. But it’s occurred to me, and Michael Easter points out, that we now live in a society where our natural instincts are muted by all the “comforts” around us.

These “comforts” exist in many forms, but the most prevalent and detrimental are by far ultra-processed foods, unlimited entertainment on our phones, TVs, and laptops, and climate-controlled homes, cars and office buildings which invoke a sedentary life. As he points out, these modern luxuries have only existed for “around .03 percent of the time we’ve walked the earth.” But regardless of the infinitesimal amount of time they’ve been around, their level of toxicity has been enough to wreak havoc on our lives and our health.

Seventy percent of the adult population is overweight or obese. Over 40 million Americans have mobility issues. Fourteen out of 15 adults have poor cardio-metabolic health. And, the one that kills me, 1 out of 4 children are obese and/or pre-diabetic, and are now suffering from diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and colon cancer.

And the problems aren’t just physical. In the last two decades overdose deaths have increased 300%. In the last few years alone drug overdoses amongst 10 - 19 years old have nearly doubled, dragging life expectancy down to its lowest levels in decades, and crippling what should be the next generation of thinkers and innovators. The problem, as I see it, is that modern comforts has evolved in a way that blunts our intuition, which in turn leads us to make poor choices that run counter to our needs.

Our lives are filled with fake products and devices that interfere with our innate ability to seek out what we need. Fake foods cloud our brain and stop it from signaling to our body what fuel we need, causing us instead to eat more calorically dense manufactured foods that are devoid of nutrition and filled with sugar and chemicals. Social media makes us crave attention and acceptance from fake relationships and in turn ignore real ones. Binging TV shows, movies, and videos rob us of our inclination to be creative and curious and impedes on our ability to discover our path and achieve fulfillment. The list goes on and on.

It’s no coincidence that the happiest and healthiest people around the world are the ones who live the simplest and sometimes most challenging lives. Whether it’s the people of Okinawa highlighted in Ikigai or all of the communities studied in Live to 100, “The Blue Zones,” there’s a common thread they share. Embracing a life that brings them back to their natural inclinations, and stripping themselves of the desires and toxins that modern society promotes under the guise of “better.”

Living life in this way lends itself to call on your intuition, to listen to your gut, to follow your heart. The modern comforts of life can be enthralling, and they can provide enhancement, but they’re robbing far too many of us of our ability to heed the call. The Comfort Crisis provides a great framework for anyone who is looking to reclaim their life.

A Good Book: The Unsettling of America

On a recent podcast Andrew Huberman recommended reading the works of Wendell Berry. I had never heard of him. But I did some research and found this interview, Going Home with Wendell Berry, which prompted me to buy, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Originally published in 1977, it remains today one his most well known and influential pieces of literature. In addition to being an author, Wendell Berry is an environmental activist, and has been a farmer in rural Kentucky since the mid 1960s. These credentials I think give him a unique perspective that’s hard to find.

In the 46 years since it’s publication, the tragedy of The Unsettling of America, as Wendell Berry puts it, “is that it is true.” The problem, which he masterfully articulates, is that in a world based on capitalism and competition, where exploiters and salesman abound, the promise of future progress and economic growth never actually delivers for the masses.

“If competition is the correct relation of creatures to one another and to the earth, then we must ask why exploitation is not more succesful than it is. Why, having lived so long at the expenses of other creatures and the earth, are we not healthier and happier than we are? Why does modern society exist under constant threat of the same suffering, deprivation, spite, contempt, and obliteration that it has imposed on other people and other creatures? Why do the health of the body and the health of the earth decline together? And why, in consideration of this decline of our worldly flesh and household, our “sinful earth,” are we not healthier in spirit?”

He later goes on to say:

“It is not necessary to have recourse to statistics to see that the human estate is declining with the estate of nature, and that the corruption of the body is the corruption of the soul. I know that the country is full of “leaders” and experts of various sorts who are using statistics to prove the opposite: that we have more cars, more super-highways, more TV sets, motorboats, prepared foods etc., than any people ever had before - and are therefore better off than any people ever before. I can see the burgeoning of this “consumer economy” and can appreciate some of its attractions and comforts. But that economy has an inside and an outside; from the outside there are other things to be seen.”

The growing disconnect between humans and their intuition that he describes throughout the book continues to deepen by every relevant metric to this day. The gap in income inequality. The degradation of our land. Life expectancy. Drug use, overdoses and loneliness. And an overall sense of increasing unrest have all moved in the wrong direction. In the four plus decades since its publication, Wendell Berry’s thesis remains as true now as ever before. 

If you don’t have the time or desire to read this book then I implore you to at least read the interview mentioned above, Going Home with Wendell Berry.

This podcast episode with regenerative farmer Will Harris, who speaks with the same ferocity as Wendell Berry does, also pairs well with the book or the interview. (Fun fact: Jen and I met Will Harris on his farm in Blufton, Georgia last valentine’s day).

A Good Book For A Happy and Long Life

Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

“Mens sana in corpore sano,” a sound mind in a sound body, the health of one is connected to the other.

Ikigai, is one of the most practical and concise books I’ve ever read on the fundamentals of life. It reminded me a lot of The Lion Trackers Guide to Life (a book I’ve gifted and re-read multiple times) for the simplicity and authenticity of its message. Through research and interviews of residents of Okinawa, home to the longest life expectancy in the world, authors Hector García and Francesc Miralles deliver a comprehensive guide to living your most fulfilling life. 

Okinawa is one of the five Blue Zones first identified by Dan Buettner. While each of the Blue Zones differs in location, language, and culture, researchers have identified a few common traits they all share. Regular exercise, locally sourced whole food diets, a purpose (an Ikigai), and being part of a strong community.

People who live the longest also limit avoidable stress (the cause of most health problems according to the American Institute of Stress, read Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers to learn how this work), maintain a positive outlook on life, and have a high degree of emotional awareness.

Put simply, “the grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Finding your Ikigai, roughly translated as “the happiness of always being busy,” covers all of it.

And as you might assume, the opposite is also true. Being sedentary, lacking purpose, being distracted by money, power and material goods, and overthinking causes anxiety, stress and subsequently disease.

I found this quote in the book from Shoma Morita, creator of Morita Therapy, a technique that teaches patients to accept their emotions, particularly insightful:

“A donkey that is tied to a post by a rope will keep walking around the post in an attempt to free itself, only to become more immobilized and attached to the post. The same thing applies to people with obsessive thinking who become more trapped in their own suffering when they try to escape from their fears and discomforts”

It’s estimated that we have 60,000 thoughts per day. And most of them are not good. Getting tied around your thoughts is not hard to do.

In Ikigai authors Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles also talk about the importance of “flow,” a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyis, and described as “the pleasure, delight, creativity, and process when we are completely immersed in life.” They go further to say “Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.” It turns out that contrary to popular belief, when we multi-task and “ask our brains to switch back and forth between tasks, we waste time, make more mistakes, and remember less of what we’ve done.”

Ikigai, the book and the phrase, are about living in the now, and enjoying the things that bring us pleasure. By freeing ourselves from distractions, and focusing on the things that we truly find joy in, we too can achieve a long and happy life.

Top 10 Books Read in 2023

Every year I get great pleasure out of reading good books, and I’m always pushing those books onto my friends and loved ones who I think would enjoy them as well. This year I’m sharing the Top 10 books I read (not published) in 2023. The list includes book dedicated to Personal Development, Personal Finance / Financial Freedom, Non-Fiction, and Fiction.

Each one of these books shaped my year in a different way and I hope that they can do the same thing for you.

Happy Reading!

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Personal Development

Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, by James Clear - I put this book off for a long time, dismissing it’s popularity as a fluke. But I bought a copy after listening to James Clear on the Joe Rogan Experience [link] and realized how closely I aligned with what he had to say. After reading Atomic Habits it became clear why the book is so popular. For me, it built on the concepts and knowledge I gained from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, but it also provided actionable ways to improve. Combined, these two books create the perfect framework to re-route and build better habits.

Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, by Gabor Matè - Scattered Minds builds on the lessons from In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts (what really causes addiction). Attention Deficit Disorder is not what you think it is. In fact, nothing is. Our lives and who we are, or who we think we are, are all shaped by the experiences and traumas we’ve faced throughout our lives. Every experience shapes you. After reading this book you’ll have a better understanding of human behavior, your own struggles with ADD/ADHD, and have greater sympathy for those struggling around you.

The Age of Scientific Wellness: Why the Future of Medicine Is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and in Your Hands, by Leroy Hood and Nathan Price - It’s no secret that the healthcare system is broken. I saw it firsthand in my 10 years working in the industry. This book provides hope that  big shifts in technology and ways of monitoring our health will usher in a new age of healthcare that is desperately needed. I loved this book, and although it sounds dense, it’s really well written and an easy read. If you’re curious about the future of healthcare, and/or you want to know where the opportunities might be, then this is a great book to read.

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Personal Finance / Financial Freedom

Buy This, Not That: How To Spend Your Way To Wealth And Freedom, by Sam Dogen (aka The Financial Samurai) - I wish I read Buy This, Not That 15 years ago (it wasn’t out then) when I was just starting my career. I wish I read it 5 years ago when I left my job. I really think this book is a must read for anyone who is looking for a practical and informative guide on how to achieve independence and wealth. Sam lays out actionable items, and provides real world examples to relate to. He also does it in a way that is easy to understand and follow. For followers of the Financial Samurai blog and newsletter, this book wraps up the lessons he teaches us each week with a nice little bow. I've already purchased an additional copy for my 16 year old nephew and I plan on buying a few more for people who I know could benefit. Great book.

Same As Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risks, Opportunity, and Living a Good Life, by Morgan Housel - I enjoyed this book more than his first book, The Psychology of Money. Which is saying a lot. Same As Ever thought offers more practical advice that can be used across all areas of your life. There were a handful of chapters, like Time Horizons and Trying Too Hard, which really hit home for me. This book and Buy This, Not That both came into my life at the exact right, when after 5 years of hiatus, I’m starting to put the pieces back together and planning for the future. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone.

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Non-Fiction

A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams, by Michael Pollan - Only Michael Pollan can bring a writing shed to life. And do it while simultaneously teaching us about the interconnectedness of our lives and nature. This book is engaging and written with the same elegance that is present in all of his books. The book is also filled with practical information and lessons on how to approach building a structure. This book, like all of his, has inspired me to keep reading, writing, and looking for the connections around us.

Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, by Mark Pendergast - Coffee, like most commodities, has a brutal past. This book reminded me a lot of the story told in The Fish That Ate The Whale. Deception. Greed. U.S. backed governments coups. These are all part of coffee’s history. In spite of it’s horrid past, the production of coffee and the industry around it, has come a long way. The difference between what you see today at your local or chain coffee shop and what you’ll learn in this book will shock you and make you appreciate the ease at which we now consume our most important drug.

The New Fish: The Truth About Farmed Salmon and the Consequences We Can No Longer Ignore, by Simen Saetre and Kjetil Ostli - As a health freak who lived on salmon (mostly farmed, yikes) for years, I recently become interested to learn more about the farmed fish industry. The New Fish is a really well written piece of investigative journalism that dives into the farmed salmon and aquaculture industries, their practices, who holds influence over them, and what some people are doing to try and change it. Everyone should know where their food comes from, and with 70 percent of the worlds salmon now coming from farms, it behooves all of us to learn what that means and what impact it has. This book is about farmed salmon, but the tactics used are the same in every industry. Farmed fish, compared to livestock farming, is still in its infancy. It’s interesting to learn how an industry developed so quickly around something no one knew anything about. This is a great read.

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Fiction

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd - The Invention of Wings is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction. Set in Charleston, South Carolina, this books tells the story of a young slave and her reluctant master, a child herself, who are fighting to realize the same dream. Freedom. We picked this book up last winter on a road trip through the south, where the history of slavery retains a permanent place in the local culture. The Invention of Wings will take you on a journey, and bring you front and center to bear witness to the atrocities and injustices that occurred, and continue to shape the lives of so many people today.

Black Dog Escape, by WL Bach - On the surface Black Dog Escape is about a former Navy SEAL fighting the demons of war and trying to make a new life for himself after retiring from combat. But I found there was a lot for non-combat citizens to relate to as well. We all have something that tugs at our happiness, and can bring us into a dark place. As Plato says and WL Bach quotes in the book, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." For the main character, Jack, it’s his war induced PTSD, and for the rest of us it’s the relative trauma we’ve experienced in our lives. I chose to read Black Dog Escape to take a break from all the self-improvement and health related books I’d been immersed in this year. Turns out, this was one of the best self-improvement books I read all year.

A Good Book: Black Dog Escape

“The ancient Egyptians believed that when you die, the Gods ask you two questions before they let you into the next world: Did you find joy in life? Did you help someone else find joy in life?”

A few Saturdays ago my girlfriend and I were exploring the Western Slope of Colorado and popped into a local coffee shop. On my way to the bathroom an event being setup in the back grabbed my attention. When I got out I saw that it was a fundraiser and a book signing. I hesitated for a minute, and then walked over.

It was a local fundraiser for veterans. The book signing was for Black Dog Escape, written by former Navy SEAL, William Bach. He was selling his book and donating the proceeds to the cause. We struck up a conversation with him and his wife and ended up chatting for a while. It turns out we had a lot of common interests. Before leaving I bought a signed copy from him.

Black Dog Escape is about a former Navy SEAL fighting the demons of war and trying to make a new life for himself after retiring from combat. The main character, Jack, gives all the outward impressions of a normal guy. He owns a local book shop, likes to go crabbing, and is a regular in town. But on the inside he’s tormented by what he’s seen and done in war.

As Jack is searching for answers to heal his trauma, an adventure and love story begins to unfold around him. But the Black Dog won’t relent and keeps nipping at his heels.

While the story is told from a veterans point of view, I found that there was a lot that related to the every day lives of non-combat citizens as well. We all have something that tugs at our happiness, that can bring us into a dark place. 

As Plato says and WL Bach quotes midway through the book, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

For Jack, it’s his trauma from the war, and for the rest of us it could be childhood trauma, a devastating loss, or a bad breakup.

I chose to read Black Dog Escape this week to take a break from all the self-improvement and health related books I’ve been immersed in this year. Turns out I didn’t get much of a break from learning, but at least the lessons here were taught through a well written and entertaining story. I pulled out a lot of wisdom that I’ll definitely be remembering throughout my life.

When I walked over to that fundraiser table I was nervous about getting pulled into a commitment (financially or otherwise) that I wouldn’t be able to say no to, and for that reason I almost walked right by. But I fought that urge and I’m glad I did. Because I got to meet a really impressive couple, and I got a great book out of it. The uncomfortable thing can be rewarding.

Enjoy.