Read A Classic

I love donuts, and so also the people who make donuts. (Krispy Kreme is tops.) Donuts can be “part of a balanced diet” as they say; eaten in moderation, donuts can make your life better overall. Nevertheless, if I made donuts I might worry sometimes that I was tempting folks away from a balanced diet, to eat too many tasty donuts.

Similarly, as a blog author, while I realize that blog posts can be part of a balanced intellectual diet, I worry that I tempt readers to fill their intellectual diet with too much of the fashionably new, relative to the old and intellectually nutritious. Until you reach the state of the art, and are ready to be at the very forefront of advancing human knowledge, most of what you should read to get to that forefront isn’t today’s news, or even today’s blogger musings. Read classic books and articles, textbooks, review articles. Then maybe read focused publications (including perhaps some blog posts) on your chosen focus topic(s).

Of course you should allow yourself some breaks and leisure. And my blog can be part of such leisure. But never confuse leisure that makes you sweat with work.