Check out my new article on the Silent Book Club blog. It’s called Where Have You Been All My Life?

Have you ever experienced a stunning moment when you felt struck by the simplicity of an idea, and instantly sure of your next move? I did, two years ago. Read all about it here!

In the meantime, as you’re reading that article, and as you and I wait for our next huge thunderbolt of a realization or discovery or unique happenstance . . . I’ll be in the air over the Atlantic Ocean! More on that next time. Meanwhile, keep on reading, folks. You never know what you might find when you open a cover and venture into strings of words. . . .

Books are timelessly trendy . . . though it doesn’t always feel that way. Read more about this topic in my new post on the Silent Book Club blog. It’s called “The Timelessness of Books.” Check it out here. Let me know your thoughts on this topic after you read the article!

What do women really want? Flowers? Chocolate? Doors opened for them? To be tied up on a train track and saved in the nick of time?

Honestly, I have no idea. I have a hard enough time figuring out what I want—let alone all women on earth!

So let’s talk about something I do know about: what you want. You, apparently, want to read a blog post called “What Women Really Want.” Furthermore, it’s likely that at least some of you want to read such a blog post not because, ten minutes ago, you were thinking to yourself, “The best use of my time right now would be to read a blog post about what women really want!”—but, rather, because you saw the title and felt mildly intrigued, while also feeling disinclined to do something more cognitively demanding than clicking a link.

In other words, it’s possible that some of this post’s readers—not you, of course!—fell for the clickbait I so slyly threw out there. But, trust me, they’re not alone! I succumb to clickbait all the time. I mean, it’s called “bait” because it lures us helplessly in! Moth to a flame! Nonetheless, however you ended up here, I’m genuinely glad you did, because I want to tell you about a great book called Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.

Newport dedicates three separate chapters of the book to three different ways that we can spend the free time we will acquire if we stop mindlessly clicking around on the Internet. According to Newport, these three uses of time are essential to human health and happiness, and yet are often neglected in the digital age:

• Solitude
• Conversation
• Demanding activities

At this point, I’d like to share a passage from Newport’s book. It’s from his chapter on demanding activities, but, in my opinion, it applies to all three of his recommended uses of time:

“The value you receive from a pursuit is often proportional to the energy invested. We might tell ourselves there’s no greater reward after a hard day at the office than to have an evening entirely devoid of plans or commitments. But we then find ourselves, several hours of idle watching and screen tapping later, somehow more fatigued than when we began. . . . If you instead rouse the motivation to spend that same time actually doing something—even if it’s hard—you’ll likely end the night feeling better.”

Obviously, demanding activities are hard. (I’m trying to learn French at the moment, and facile isn’t exactly a word that applies.) But I would argue that solitude and conversation are also hard, at least for us moderns. With various technologies filling every waking moment, carving out time for solitude and conversation is hard to do. It’s also hard to learn how to enjoy being alone, or how to enjoy being social, if those aren’t activities that come naturally to you. But I agree with Newport that the hard work does pay off.

And if you have made it through this entire, 500-word blog post? Congratulations: that counts as a demanding activity! Will you also make time to be alone and to be social today?

I already knew, before beginning the book Digital Minimalism, that its author Cal Newport is no fan of social media. He argues against it regularly on his blog.

Yep, he draws a distinction between social media and blogging. For example, in his recent blog post On Blogs in the Social Media Age, he explains why popular blogs are more likely to have high-quality content than popular social media feeds.

What I didn’t see coming was Newport’s objection to the “Like” (sometimes called “Favorite”) buttons that are ubiquitous on modern social media platforms. In Digital Minimalism, he writes at length about what seems to be an innocent enough feature. And he makes a compelling argument for it being neither innocent nor harmless.

The “Like” button, Newport explains, is sleazy and harmful because it transforms a website from a “fun amusement” to a “digital slot machine.” In other words, social media companies use their “Like” buttons to addict people in the same way that slot machines are addictive. The difference is that slot machines take money directly, while social media sites get money from advertisers when many people spend lots of time clicking around. Logging in and seeing that red notification saying that someone “Liked” your post gives the brain a pleasureful ping—which we crave again and again.

So we lose time that we could spend otherwise. Newport describes many of the types of activities we are missing out on. One of the most important of these, ironically, is social interaction: the very thing social media is supposed to be providing us! He cites research studies that show that the more time people spend on social media, the lonelier they tend to be. Yikes! And here’s one of my favorite passages in the book, which neatly explains the difference between clicking “Like” and engaging in activities that prevent loneliness:

“Earlier, I cited extensive research that supports the claim that the human brain has evolved to process the flood of information generated by face-to-face interactions. To replace this rich flow with a single bit is the ultimate insult to our social processing machinery. To say it’s like driving a Ferrari under the speed limit is an understatement; the better simile is towing a Ferrari behind a mule.”

Ha! No, let’s not waste our time towing luxury cars behind pack animals! Though I suppose it might be necessary in certain circumstances. Pack animals do travel rough, mountainous terrain better than sports cars. And the “Like” button can keep people in touch despite the rocky terrain of busy lives and far distances. Newport admits that social media can provide real benefits to individuals: it’s not all bad. His point is that we should think carefully about how we spend our time, and make darn sure that we aren’t replacing rich and real human interaction with the poorest sort of contact possible.

I chose the accompanying photo because I like that it can symbolize this post’s theme in two opposite ways. Does the computer represent the human brain and all its rich processing power, while the candle represents the “Like” button and its limited ability to illuminate? Or does the candle represent the real-world homeyness of sharing a space with someone, while the computer represents the coldness of machines?

Hello, book lovers! Today I’d like to share with you a hodgepodge of tips and reminders.

TIPS: Articles for Lifelong Learners

I am excited to announce that I have added a new page to my website called Tips. It’s in the navigation bar at the top of every page. Here I will offer various articles for lifelong learners. Because these articles are written for specific audiences, each of them may or may not be applicable to you. Thus, I will periodically share with you their existence as I write them, but I will not include them in their entirety in blog posts. That way, if the subject of a particular article interests you, you can click through and read it; but if it is not applicable to you, you will not be burdened by its appearance in your inbox. Here are the first two articles I have posted there:

• How to Comment on a Blog Post – Easy Instructions—This article is for blog readers who would like to comment on a blog post, but aren’t sure how. It contains easy, step-by-step instructions.
• Books to Read Before College – Prime Your Mind!—This article is for high school juniors, seniors, and graduates who plan to go to college. I offer a list of books that teens might read to prepare for university-level coursework.

TIPS: If Statements

Irene commented on my post If vs Whether: Grammar at Work that she would be interested to learn about “if statements” that are contrary to fact and “if statements” that use the subjunctive mood.

• “If statements” can be grammatically correct, and yet be false. For example, take the following sentence: If you decide to go to the theater tonight, (then) I will see you there. According to the sentence’s grammar, which is correct, I will definitely see you at the theater in the case that you decide to go. (The sentence says nothing about what will happen if you decide not to go.) Even though this sentence is grammatically correct, I could say this and yet have no intention of going anywhere near the theater tonight. The sentence could also be false in other ways—for example, we could both end up at the theater but not see each other.
• “If statements” often use the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood communicates that something is imaginary or unreal. For example, take the following sentence: If I were to adopt a dog, (then) I would walk my dog every day. This is the subjunctive mood because I am speaking hypothetically about adopting a dog; it is something I am imagining doing, but is not a reality. Once again, though this sentence is grammatically correct, I could be telling the truth, I could be lying, or I could be trying to tell the truth but actually be wrong. One interesting fact about the subjunctive mood in English is that some of its verb forms have fallen out of use over the centuries. People today often substitute was for the technically correct were in such sentences: If I was to adopt a dog . . . And take this famous Shakespeare line (the opening words of Twelfth Night): “If music be the food of love, play on.” Today we would use is instead of be, and that would be perfectly correct. Confusing, right?

REMINDER: Enter the Contest!

I once again invite you to enter the second contest of this blog! It ends one week from today, so you still have time to enter! Click here to see the contest details. Thank you so much for your support!

REMINDER: Daylight Savings Time

Don’t forget (if you live in certain areas of the world, including much of the U.S.) to move your clocks forward on Sunday!

I hope you enjoyed this little mélange of thoughts. Happy Friday!