Well, I paid a lot more than $7 for my copies. They were worth every penny. Considering all the effort you put into creating that book, it seems like an insult for it to go for $7.
Sooo many people, in increasing numbers, is clearly missing out on what Carl Sagan described as one of humanity’s greatest forms of magic:
The ability to step inside another person’s mind, even across thousands of years, and become part of the long chain of ideas, stories, and accumulated wisdom that books have carried forward through history.
Reading truly remains a form of inner restoration and a quiet edge in an increasingly distracted world… so I’m totally with you: F*ck the machine.
The gym metaphor holds because it's literally true.
Reading is sustained attention. Attention is trainable. Everything else follows from that.
Deck chair, book in hand, phone buzzing beside me. I felt the pull — not to escape the book, but to escape the discomfort of staying with one idea for more than ninety seconds. I turned the phone face down. Ten minutes later I was inside the paragraph. Heart rate down. Focus back.
Nothing about the world changed. I did.
That's the fight in miniature. Not willpower. Reps.
One study of high schoolers found the kids who read more scored higher on critical thinking. Strong signal, not proof — reading and thinking probably build each other. But the mechanism tracks. Long-form makes you hold a thread of logic across pages, sit with ambiguity, follow an argument that doesn't resolve in one line. Short-form trains the opposite reflex. React fast. Judge faster. Move on.
I've read hundreds of books. Two rewired how I think about cause and effect. The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin taught me to hold two opposing ideas without collapsing into one — the exact skill every feed on earth is built to destroy. How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil taught me what actually produces the food, the energy, the materials under my feet, instead of the story I'd been sold. 46 highlights in one. 58 in the other. Neither book is fast. Neither survives being summarized.
Refusing to doomscroll isn't the counterculture. It's maintenance.
Every generation has had to defend its attention against something built to fragment it. Ours is just better at the job than any before it.
Terry Vermeylen — author of The Input Effect: Master What You Control, Maximize What You Get (Feb 2027)
Well, I paid a lot more than $7 for my copies. They were worth every penny. Considering all the effort you put into creating that book, it seems like an insult for it to go for $7.
Not $7! Discounted by $7. (And thank you for the kind words and ongoing readership and support of my work!!)
ROTFL. I’m guessing I’m one of those you referred to that need to learn how to read.🤣
Indeed you are, but you can rebuild that muscle
Thanks Brad. If i hadn't been scrolling i should have missed all this! (But i do read books every day😇)
Thank you for addressing this, Brad.
Sooo many people, in increasing numbers, is clearly missing out on what Carl Sagan described as one of humanity’s greatest forms of magic:
The ability to step inside another person’s mind, even across thousands of years, and become part of the long chain of ideas, stories, and accumulated wisdom that books have carried forward through history.
Reading truly remains a form of inner restoration and a quiet edge in an increasingly distracted world… so I’m totally with you: F*ck the machine.
This book really is an Excellent read..
I love this message, Brad. Growing up in the '80s and '90s, I saw so many commercials promoting the importance of reading and literacy.
Tnx for this!
This made me think
https://substack.com/@jimelgimel/note/p-206552778?r=dvdhc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
The gym metaphor holds because it's literally true.
Reading is sustained attention. Attention is trainable. Everything else follows from that.
Deck chair, book in hand, phone buzzing beside me. I felt the pull — not to escape the book, but to escape the discomfort of staying with one idea for more than ninety seconds. I turned the phone face down. Ten minutes later I was inside the paragraph. Heart rate down. Focus back.
Nothing about the world changed. I did.
That's the fight in miniature. Not willpower. Reps.
One study of high schoolers found the kids who read more scored higher on critical thinking. Strong signal, not proof — reading and thinking probably build each other. But the mechanism tracks. Long-form makes you hold a thread of logic across pages, sit with ambiguity, follow an argument that doesn't resolve in one line. Short-form trains the opposite reflex. React fast. Judge faster. Move on.
I've read hundreds of books. Two rewired how I think about cause and effect. The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin taught me to hold two opposing ideas without collapsing into one — the exact skill every feed on earth is built to destroy. How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil taught me what actually produces the food, the energy, the materials under my feet, instead of the story I'd been sold. 46 highlights in one. 58 in the other. Neither book is fast. Neither survives being summarized.
Refusing to doomscroll isn't the counterculture. It's maintenance.
Every generation has had to defend its attention against something built to fragment it. Ours is just better at the job than any before it.
Terry Vermeylen — author of The Input Effect: Master What You Control, Maximize What You Get (Feb 2027)
This is super scary. I can't help but wonder what this is going to do to society compounded over the next decade or so.
May as well call it end of good taste.
Most people online all sound the same.