{"id":5827,"date":"2018-04-20T06:08:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T06:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=5827"},"modified":"2023-04-24T23:06:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T23:06:00","slug":"the-purpose-of-reading-is-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/the-purpose-of-reading-is-to-write\/","title":{"rendered":"The purpose of reading is to write"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve long struggled with the fact that [I forget most of what I read](http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=5777). I read mostly for fun, but it&#8217;s disappointing when what I read doesn&#8217;t affect my life.<\/p>\n<p>Writing about books seems to help me remember what I read. The additional thinking required to write down and compress my thoughts solidifies the lessons from the book. A good friend once said that &#8220;no one can ever teach you anything; they can only help you realize what you actually believe already.&#8221; Writing about what I read further distills the ideas and helps me &#8220;know what I believe&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s also an imbalance created by only taking in ideas and not putting them back out. Writing helps me let go of ideas, making room for new things.<\/p>\n<p>So now when I find a new book to read, I ask myself &#8220;what will you write about this?&#8221; The books that seem like good writing inspiration are also usually the best reads as well.<\/p>\n<p>(inspired by a <!-- Invalid tweet id -->(https:\/\/twitter.com\/stevesi\/status\/987028898880733184)&#8230;sure, tweets count as writing too!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve long struggled with the fact that [I forget most of what I read](http:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/?p=5777). I read mostly for fun, but it&#8217;s disappointing when what I read doesn&#8217;t affect my life. Writing about books seems to help me remember what I read. The additional thinking required to write down and compress my thoughts solidifies the lessons&#8230;<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/the-purpose-of-reading-is-to-write\/\">more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,378,4,385],"tags":[358],"class_list":["post-5827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-psychology-2","category-ryskampdotorg","category-writing-2","tag-tagged"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9wjHJ-1vZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5827"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5835,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5827\/revisions\/5835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bob.ryskamp.org\/brain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}