anchor.diff:  
   I started thinking in the last couple of days about the problem of forgetting. And I think there are at least several points to be made here.
   
  -Most of the worthy books were written not for entertainment. That stands true for both fiction and non-fiction. Everything worthy requires time, commitment and effort. It seems that effort just to read a book is not enough.
  +Most of the worthy books were written not for entertainment. That stands true for both fiction and non-fiction. 
  +Everything worthy requires time, commitment and effort. It seems that effort just to read a book is not enough.
   
  -In a school for every worthy book, there was dedicated time for at least several lessons. During this time, you would have discussions about the book, discussion about the context in which the book was written (historical time and author biography e.x.), you would write some essay with critique about the book, you would have to test comprehension. You would basically think about the book and repeat it's message in different mediums on the different days. This reminds me of Spaced Repetition technique. You are repeating what you've learned over the period of time and you combine mediums too. At the end, a lot of information about the book is engraved in your brain. It would be much harder to forget those ideas, because you not only read them but discussed them, argued about them, wrote about them etc.
  +In a school for every worthy book, there was dedicated time for at least several lessons. 
  +During this time, you would have discussions about the book, discussion about the context in which the book was written (historical time and author biography e.x.), you would write some essay with critique about the book, you would have to test comprehension. You would basically think about the book and repeat it's message in different mediums on the different days. This reminds me of Spaced Repetition technique. You are repeating what you've learned over the period of time and you combine mediums too. At the end, a lot of information about the book is engraved in your brain. It would be much harder to forget those ideas, because you not only read them but discussed them, argued about them, wrote about them etc.
   
  -Alain de Botton once presented the idea of the importance of repetition. He argued that the brilliance of traditional religions is in the constant repetition of the truths and values. E.x. you go to church and listen to the same stories every week. I think that is what we are missing now. We should concentrate on the quality of knowledge/information/ideas/wisdom we consume.
  +Alain de Botton once presented the idea of the importance of repetition. 
  +He argued that the brilliance of traditional religions is in the constant repetition of the truths and values. E.x. you go to church and listen to the same stories every week. I think that is what we are missing now. We should concentrate on the quality of knowledge/information/ideas/wisdom we consume.
   
  -It seems that fiction is much easier to remember than non-fiction. Fiction is more visual and easy to grasp. I can recall a plot of a lot of fiction books I've read. As I said I can't do that for non-fiction. The reason for that I think lies in the nature of non-fiction books. Non-fiction books are about ideas. Ideas are abstract concepts. They are not always directly tied to reality. In order to remember such book later, you need to understand it very well. In order to understand non-fiction book you've need to build mental model of this book in your head. Non-fiction authors have a mental model of the world in their heads when they write a book.Your goal is to rebuild that model in your head, to make it physical. Non-fiction sounds a little bit like programming. The code is an abstract expression of author ideas about the world. Your goal is to grasp it now and make it possible to recall in the future.
  +It seems that fiction is much easier to remember than non-fiction. 
  +Fiction is more visual and easy to grasp. 
  +I can recall a plot of a lot of fiction books I've read. As I said I can't do that for non-fiction. The reason for that I think lies in the nature of non-fiction books. Non-fiction books are about ideas. Ideas are abstract concepts. They are not always directly tied to reality. In order to remember such book later, you need to understand it very well. In order to understand non-fiction book you've need to build mental model of this book in your head. Non-fiction authors have a mental model of the world in their heads when they write a book. 
  +Your goal is to rebuild that model in your head, to make it physical. 
  +Non-fiction sounds a little bit like programming. 
  +The code is an abstract expression of author ideas about the world. 
  +Your goal is to grasp it now and make it possible to recall in the future.
   
   Thinking of this difference between fiction and non-fiction I realized that Alain de Botton's The Course of Love written in a most brilliant way. It's written like a novel (fiction) but it has quotes of his main ideas in each chapter (non-fictional ideas in a non-fictional style). Those quotes are important there because sometimes it's not always easy for you to formulate idea nicely even after reading the story. 
  -I wonder if there are other books like that? That is an interesting approach for modern journalists, philosophers to take: pick your serious topic and present it in a fictional way but express and highlight your main ideas directly.
  +I wonder if there are other books like that? 
  +That is an interesting approach for modern journalists, philosophers to take: pick your serious topic and present it in a fictional way but express and highlight your main ideas directly.
   
   Another good idea is to read books in pairs. I mentioned before Brave New World and Amusing Ourselves to Death. 
   These two books work great together. 
  
positive.code: Postman gives you good explanations why. 
  He gives also real examples from moderns times that you can grasp more easily.
  
  So it seems that there are possible solutions to the problem of forgetting. It seems that sometimes we can make a process of remembering easier. But I don't think that this is the main takeaway. I think the best thing we can do is to invest more time and effort into reading.
  
  Personally I plan to alter my approach to reading in the following way:
  
  
negative.code: 
  This year is already one of the best in terms of reading for me personally. I don't think I've read that much since middle school. However 10 months after starting reading again I noticed several new problems.
  
  I've read several books that I was super excited after finishing. 
  Books like Sapiens, Bruce Lee Striking Thoughts, Bertrand Russell's Best, Ill Fares the Land and few others impressed me a lot, they presented some new ideas I didn't know, some wisdom, approaches etc. They triggered a lot of thought. I was very enthusiastic after each of them but the problem is few month later I couldn't remember a single idea of any of those books. I don't know what I liked about "Sapiens" book, I don't remember what Bruce Lee's insight I liked. The only thing I remember is whether I liked the book or not. I remember my feelings about the book, not the ideas presented in it.
  
  I recently finished reading two books that go well together: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. This is truly the most powerful pair of books I've read in years. After finishing those two books I've got scared that in 3 months I would forget what I liked about them and what were the ideas of those books. And I don't want to forget. 
  Those books contain ideas of high importance. The same is true about books I enumerated above.
  