The first deep life question comes from Kim. Kim says, does your focus on the quantity of books that you read dilute their impact? Can you remember the content of that many books or does it even matter? Kim, I don't think I read that many books. I read five books a month.

I don't think that's that many. I think in June, I'm gonna read six because I had a couple of days where I was being COVID-y. So I took advantage of that to read an extra book. I don't think that's a lot of books. I think our standards are too low.

I think our standards for intellectual engagement have got so low that that seems like some impossibly large amount. But I think historically speaking, or looking at the life of any sort of serious intellectual, especially pre-internet intellectual, five books a month is nothing. That's nothing. And so no, I don't think I read too much to dilute their impact.

Again, here's the thing. I don't skim. I'm not staying up late in the night to try to make some numbers. You have more time than you think to do things like reading if you get rid of other things that are taking its place, namely looking at your phone. Just leisurely reading in your spare time can generate more books completed than you would imagine.

So I actually uploaded a video a couple of weeks ago. I recorded it just for YouTube. It was just an inspiration I had. So you can only find it at the youtube.com/calnewportmedia. But it was called something like how I read five books a month. And so Kim, you might want to watch that.

I get into what I do in my life to get through that many books. If you watch that video, you'll see not that much reading. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)