Read This Quickly

I tend to write short posts, mostly because I don't have a lot to say about most things; just a couple of stray thoughts here and there, most of which show up in this blog. Given that I've been writing it for a couple of years, there must be, oh, four or maybe even five paragraphs of worthwhile things in there. (Which brings to mind the Mark Twain quip about asking to leave work early one day, while working as a newspaper reporter; his editor replied Sure, just write half a paragraph.)

That translates into not wanting to read a lot, either. I'm not talking about books -- that's different -- but magazine articles; really, articles of any type. Here's an example: I found this article, about our feelings regarding wealth, while StumblingUpon through the web. I read the first couple of paragraphs, and liked it. I thought the writer made some good points, and some that hadn't occurred to me. (Thats how to get my attention: say things that I agree with, and then ease into the other stuff. I think that's the technique used by used-car salesmen, too, come to think of it.) I don't think about wealth a lot, other than wondering how long my money will hold out if I quit Right This Minute, And My Wife, Too, but I liked what he had to say.

Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very specialized skill. But for some reason we treat this skill differently. No one complains when a few people surpass all the rest at playing chess or writing novels, but when a few people make more money than the rest, we get editorials saying this is wrong.

So I skipped ahead to see how long this article was. It turns out that it was about fourteen screens deep, plus notes. Fourteen screens! Forget it! And yet, I like the material, and if it were in, say, the New York Times Magazine, I'd read it. Or if I had ready access to a printer (this is being written on the laptop; for some reason, the connection to the desktop PC, into which the printer is plugged, is verrryyyy sllloooowwww), I'd just print it, read it, and toss the pages. But making the committment to read multiple pages, on the screen, feels like too much work. I'll read the abridged version, or the comments at the top -- or if there are comments from others, I'll read them to get a sense of what the article was about.

Thats weird, I know.

Hope this wasn't too long.