This will be my last post on the philosophy books I skim-read last year. I did get through the whole list; I even signed up for a free month of Audible to finish listening to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. However, this post will conclude my foray into this arena for now.

I thought I would like Nietzsche a lot more. Honestly, I found him somewhat cynical and condescending. Below are excerpts from Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals.

“The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and over fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become an instinct, a dominating instinct—what name will he give to it, to this dominating instinct, if he needs to have a word for it? But there is no doubt about it—the sovereign man calls it his conscience.”

I like this description of conscience. Finding the right balance in our relationship to our conscience is difficult and important. We want to allow and encourage that dominating instinct we have to motivate us to skillful behaviors and actions. However, we also want to check the validity and effectiveness of our conscience with reason. This is probably each person’s greatest responsibility.

“The feeling of “ought,” of personal obligation (to take up again the train of our inquiry), has had, as we saw, its origin in the oldest and most original personal relationship that there is, the relationship between buyer and seller, creditor and ower: here it was that individual confronted individual, and that individual matched himself against individual. There has not yet been found a grade of civilisation so low, as not to manifest some trace of this relationship.”

Nietzsche viewed contractual obligations between buyer and seller as the most ancient and obvious origin for early morality. There have to be certain rules and customs that are followed to allow people to retain their property and be able to trade that property for something else in an equitable settlement. The question of how and why humans evolved the morality that they did is certainly interesting, though personally I’m much more interested in present-day utility.

“It is possible to conceive of a society blessed with so great a consciousness of its own power as to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting its wrong-doers go scot-free.—“What do my parasites matter to me?” might society say. “Let them live and flourish! I am strong enough for it.”—The justice which began with the maxim, “Everything can be paid off, everything must be paid off,” ends with connivance at the escape of those who cannot pay to escape—it ends, like every good thing on earth, by destroying itself.—The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls itself—Grace! it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of the strongest, better still, their super-law.”

The ability we have to lend grace is directly proportional to the amount of power we possess. According to Nietzsche, showing grace is the privilege of the successful. The Biblical story of ‘The Widow’s Mite’ comes to mind. Giving to others when you have little is commendable. Giving out of your surplus not so much.

“To talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely non-sensical; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an exploitation, an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life is essentially (that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating, and is absolutely inconceivable without such a character.”

Since I didn’t read the entirety of Nietzsche’s thoughts on morality, I am not even going to begin to try to paraphrase what his moral system looked like. However, just taking the above quote at face value, I can say that I whole-heartedly agree that morality cannot be objective or intrinsic, while I disagree that to live necessarily involves causing harm. The concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ don’t exist independently of our perception of them, and thus are necessarily subjective and conditioned.

I can more objectively talk about right and wrong in the context of a given reference point. If I have the goal of completing an Ironman Triathlon (I do!), then it is right for me to train for this by strenuously working out and eating healthy. It would be wrong for me not to do these things. If you are someone who doesn’t have this goal, then for you these behaviors might be amoral.

In Nietzsche’s quote, power seems to be the goal, which would make exploitation and oppression right, or at the very least permissible, if necessary to achieve that end. I also view empowerment as the ultimate goal of morality; however, I believe that the ultimate realization of this goal comes by expanding my self-identity to include the people in my life. Eventually, my understanding and connection could come to encompass the entire universe and then I (or more appropriately ‘we’) would be totally empowered.

I will expound more on the ethical system I subscribe to, enlightened egoism, in a future post.

Namaste.

This was one of my more successful challenges. Not only did I beast mode through it, but I plan on mostly continuing the challenge going forward. With the chronic pain I suffer from, consistent extensive exercise is not just good for me, but necessary for my sanity. Without further ado, here is what I learned from the experience:

• Don’t give up after a failed start. The month started not that long after I fell off the wagon with regards to my TV/movie abstinence. I wasn’t in the best spot mentally. The first 2 days of the challenge I didn’t follow it at all. It would have been easy at this point to just scrap the whole thing. However, one of the biggest skills I have been practicing is choosing middle path. 28 days is not a month (unless it’s February) but it is still an accomplishment, and much much better than nothing.
• It’s not everything, but it is enough. Two hours of daily physical conditioning doesn’t remotely cover all the physical therapy regimens I’ve been given for my back over the years. It also isn’t enough time to fit in all I would like: yoga, running, biking, swimming, calisthenics, foot exercises, body rolling, etc. However, it is enough for me. I feel content with it. Everyone needs to find this point for their body and mind – for some it is 5 minutes, for others 4 hours. Find your sweet spot.
• Beast mode is uncomfortable and awesome. That is what makes it beast mode. As much as I love Bikram Yoga (and I do!), it does not put me into beast mode. However, pumping out 200 push-ups or cranking out 100 hyper-extension repetitions definitely does. There is nothing like the feeling of complete exhaustion mixed with sheer triumph. It’s amazing, but something I have to will myself into every time.
• Having an exercise partner is a huge plus. The last week of the challenge my sister Rachel was visiting. This gave me the opportunity to run and do yoga with her every day. What a tremendous blessing this was! I do like completing a yoga class meditatively in a dark room by myself sometimes or turning on solo beast mode. However, the added motivation, accountability, and energy of exercising with a friend is quite palpable.

What will I change going forward? Not a lot actually. As I said previously, the challenge was a smashing success. However, here are a few modifications I will make:

• Put more emphasis on exercising first and last thing of every day. I naturally fell into this pattern by the end of the challenge. The reason I started with a more segmented approach at the outset was to make the challenge seem less intimidating. Two hours of exercise in the day sounds like a lot, but a bunch of 10-15 minute segments doesn’t. However, once I got into the habit, my body started expecting and enjoying the process and it became easier to put the bulk of the responsibility at the borders of the day, while still saving half an hour or so to be interspersed as helpful throughout the day.
• Find connections that encourage fitness. This is for those days when I’m just not feeling it. The idea that you are accountable to more than just yourself can be very empowering when the self is deflated. When I lived in Houston, I paid $45 a month for a gym membership, which added a financial imperative to fitness. I don’t do this currently, so creating alternative incentives is helpful to keep me on track and healthy.

It’s amazing how awesome I can feel sometimes despite the chronic pain when I channel my energy towards fitness. My goal is to default to physical conditioning during times of stress. This is far superior to my recent default of binge-watching TV shows. Additionally, one of my Christmas presents was medical-grade gel toe separators, which have been super helpful for enjoying yoga and planks despite my drop foot.

Namaste.

This month’s challenge is inspired by the book “It’s Not Just Who You Know“ by Tommy Spaulding. I am woefully challenged in the relationship department. I have had genuine connections with family, friends, and significant others over the years, but rarely ever put in the effort to turn these connections into deeper, long-lasting relationships.

Honestly, in the past as much as I may have mentally understood the importance of relationships in my life, I did not viscerally value human connection. Also, relationship-building is never something I have considered myself skilled in accomplishing. This month I want to be proactive in building and maintaining healthy relationships.

Here are the parameters of the challenge:

• Learn and use people’s names. Outside of my immediate family members and niblings, I am horrible at remembering names. The first day of this month, I will create an Anki deck with names of people in my life that I go through at least once per day. I will input insightful information about them into the deck as I encounter it. During interactions with others, however brief, I will attempt to use the person’s name at least once.
• Write a note to one person each day. I will purchase a large amount of personal stationery that I can use to send notes to people. Until I have that, I will send out emails. The content of the note is not super important; I just want to get into the habit of sending encouraging notes to those in my life to tell them I care about them, they are important to me, or I am thinking about them.
• Find low-cost inspirational books. Giving someone a book can be a great relationship-builder. I will spend a few minutes each day reading and researching short books, pick a couple by the end of the month that I find inspiring, and order several dozen copies. Then, I will have a great gift ready to give anyone with whom I would like to establish a deeper relationship connection.

I am hoping this month’s challenge will jumpstart an ongoing habit in me of cultivating relationships whenever I have the opportunity.

Namaste.

Kant is a giant in the field of philosophy. As such, I am devoting an entire post to him. Though an interesting read, he is not for the faint of mind. Below are several excerpts from Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

“For, as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error.”

I disagree with Kant’s notion that metaphysics can be “scientifically” determined in some way. However, I agree it is extremely unlikely that metaphysics will evaporate with increasing education and social progress. It will change forms, no doubt, but will always find a way to survive. What is important is to be meticulous in keeping my and others’ metaphysics separate from our physics.

“Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to skepticism, which makes short work with the whole science of metaphysics.”

One of my “10 commandments” is: Challenge uncritical thinking. This could synonymously be rewritten as Challenge dogmatism. However, as Kant says, this does not entail accepting radical skepticism or subjecting knowledge to the whim of the majority. Finding the path that avoids all these pitfalls is difficult, but must be attempted.

“In the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, we shall first isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by separating from it all that is annexed to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding, so that nothing be left but empirical intuition. In the next place we shall take away from this intuition all that belongs to sensation, so that nothing may remain but pure intuition, and the mere form of phenomena, which is all that the sensibility can afford à priori. From this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time.”

Unfortunately, I get lost quite frequently reading Kant, mainly because he uses a lot of terms having definitions with which I am unfamiliar. However, I understand and concur with the a priori deduction of space and time. After all, the law of non-contradiction, which, along with the law of identity and the law of excluded middle, form the foundation for logic, presupposes the concepts of ‘time’ and ‘space’ in order for it to be utilized.

“As to the intuitions of other thinking beings, we cannot judge whether they are or are not bound by the same conditions which limit our own intuition, and which for us are universally valid. If we join the limitation of a judgement to the conception of the subject, then the judgement will possess unconditioned validity.”

There are certain ideas, concepts, and principles that are so intuitively true to me, I take them as universal. However, the most I really can say is, that they are universal from my perspective. Obviously, I don’t know whether anything is intuitively true for everyone. To act as if something is, stems from either extreme ignorance or an utter lack of humility.

Namaste.

During all of my challenges, I have to keep reminding myself to find middle path. At the very least, this means that if I miss a day, I need to let it go and focus on starting afresh the next day (instead of trying to make up for it by adding more time the following days). It also might mean I need to restructure my challenge if it proves to be too much. Accomplishing less is always preferable to accomplishing nothing.

Things I learned from this past month:

• Hands-free reading. I love it! I prefer not having to physically hold a book when reading – carpal tunnel and all. Plus, it is better for my back. It’s difficult to read a handheld book ergonomically; if you don’t believe me, try it!
• Accessible highlights. It is very handy being able to browse highlights without having to flip through a book to find them. I don’t generally reread books, mainly because however great a book might be, there are so many other books out there – I can’t justify too much time on any one tome. However, I love skimming through the highlights I made; they encapsulate the most important elements or quotes that I gleaned from the book.
• Eyestrain. I would prefer using some type of paper display technology to cut down on eyestrain and give a more natural reading experience. If I intently read on my laptop for under 20 minutes, I am totally fine, but after that point I start noticing that reading becomes slightly more difficult the longer I stay.
• Interest. Reading philosophy texts can be one of the most exciting or most boring activities depending on the author and subject matter. I could do a book study on Hume’s Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and be totally engrossed. Augustine’s City of God, on the other hand, was probably one of the most pedantically boring reads I’ve ever endured.

How I would like to incorporate this challenge into my life going forward:

• Kindle Unlimited membership. I signed up for a 30-day free trial of Kindle Unlimited when I started the challenge. I intend to keep my membership at least until I finish with the philosophy books I elected to read on my challenge. After this period, I will reevaluate and see if I believe the $10/month cost is worth the service, or if I want to switch to borrowing from libraries.
• Screen display settings. I am not interested in buying an E-reader at this time. However, I will research the optimum display settings for extended reading on a laptop. Also, there are several apps I would like to test out, such as f.lux.
• Daily non-fiction reading. I want to incorporate some non-fiction reading (even if just for 5 minutes) into my daily routine. If nothing else, I will place some books on the nightstand next to my bed to read for a few minutes before I turn the lights out for the night.
• Engaging fiction on stand-by. Always having a couple fiction books on hand, both via audio and hard-copy, is a great way to productively use down-time. As I am already a science fiction aficionado, I will definitely start with more of that genre.

If you have read my latest blog posts, then it will go without saying that I will continue to incorporate intensive exercise into my daily routine. In Dialectical Behavior Training (DBT), there is one section of skills focused on distress tolerance. These are used when we are in emotional overload and need a way to reset and regroup. I would like to compile a similar arsenal of skills that I can use when in physical distress, which unfortunately, is fairly often.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
– Socrates

Namaste.

The third week of readings involved a lot more heavy lifting (philosophically speaking) than the first 2 weeks. I read some of the most prominent philosophers to this day: Descartes, Locke, and Hume, just to name a few. As a result, the excerpts may be more lengthy and less witty than the ones previously.

“I am, I exist—that is certain. But for how long? Surely for as long as I am thinking. For it could perhaps be the case that, if I were to abandon thinking altogether, then in that moment I would completely cease to be. At this point I am not agreeing to anything except what is necessarily true. Therefore, strictly speaking, I am merely a thinking thing, that is, a mind or spirit, or understanding, or reason—words whose significance I did not realize before. However, I am something real, and I truly exist. But what kind of thing? As I have said, a thing that thinks.”

– Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

I don’t subscribe to most of Descartes philosophical system. However, ‘cogito, ergo sum,‘ or ‘I think, therefore I am,’ is probably the only thing I will every assert to be undeniably true. Though somewhat of a tautology, it is a necessary starting point for any philosophical journey.

“If a man abounds in the fruits of the Spirit: charity, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, chastity, against which, as Paul says (Gal. v. 22), there is no law, such an one, whether he be taught by reason only or by the Scripture only, has been in very truth taught by God, and is altogether blessed.”

– Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

I feel quite confident I would get along well with Spinoza. His blend of rationalism with spirituality is refreshing to behold.

“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”

– Locke, Second Treatise of Government

This passage is the foundation of Locke’s views on property rights. I believe Locke’s view that every person owns their own body and the fruits it produces coincides neatly with the concept of bodily integrity. This is the highest value I believe a society should seek to preserve.

“I think it past doubt, that there are no practical principles wherein all men agree, and therefore none innate”

– Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding

I’m reminded of a qutote by Einstein: “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.” Anytime someone appeals to ‘common sense’ I inwardly roll my eyes. It is a conversational dead-end.

“The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavors to elude or avoid it.”

– Hume, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Hume is my favorite philosopher to read by a mile. His writing exudes a pleasing mixture of clarity and humility. The more you learn, the less you know. This has certainly been the case for me.

“In all magistracies, the greatness of the power must be compensated by the brevity of the duration. This most legislators have fixed to a year; a longer space would be dangerous, and a shorter would be contrary to the nature of government.”

– Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

This is an interesting rule. In general, I’m against term limits. Greater political turnover doesn’t equal better representation. Also, it prevents good politicians from continuing their service. How long to set the length for various terms of office is a separate question, and this seems as good a metric as any for determining them.

“Teach him to live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living.”

– Rousseau, Émile, or On Education

A paraphrase of this would be the mantra I tell myself frequently: ‘Don’t aim to survive; aim to thrive!’ As a person who suffers from chronic pain, it is tempting to just focus on surviving the day until I can go to bed, get up, and start the whole process over again. But this isn’t living. Creating and accomplishing monthly challenges is one way I can put a spark in my days.

Namaste.

Tomorrow, I am starting a new challenge requiring 2 hours of physical conditioning every day. This includes yoga, calisthenics, aerobics, PT exercises, and stretching. Here are the specifications for completing the challenge:

• Divide the day up into 6 segments. Each segment should be the same amount of time. For 16.5 hours, this works out to 2.75 hours per segment, but I can adjust as needed.
• Accomplish at least 15 minutes of physical conditioning per segment. I will aim for 20 minutes, as this will ensure that I complete the 2 hours needed by the end of the day, However, as long as I commit to at least 15 minutes, I can make up the extra time at day’s end. The one exception is if I get a workout in before starting the day. In this case, I can adjust the times proportionately.
• Incorporate daily karma practices into at least 10 minutes of challenge time. Certain forms of exercise are not conducive and even antithetical to multitasking, such as yoga and high-intensity workouts. However, others can be great opportunities for it. Before my bike accident, I would do a jog the first thing every morning during which I completed my daily check-in and mindfulness practices.
• Be creative and proactive with fitting in exercises during the day. I have a whole host of compiled exercises from several different physical therapists for my back over the years. Recently, I now have an arsenal for my drop foot as well. While it may not be appropriate to do a yoga pose or break into calisthenics in some situations, there is probably some exercise I could utilize.

I have high hopes for this challenge! Hopefully, I can find the right amount and frequency from a variety of modalities to keep my mind sharp, my body in shape, and my back from complaining too much.

Namaste.

I find myself to be much more absorptive now when reading. It’s like I have fully switched on the ‘philosopher mode’ in my brain to allow for full processing. Here are excerpts from week 2:

“Who is invincible? He who allows nothing to disturb him which is independent from the will. Examining one circumstance after the next he observes and is not disturbed.”

– Epictetus, Discourses

I find that in setting goals, it is extremely empowering to base them on things we have control over (e.g. to accomplish a project, not please a person). In other words, make them completely dependent on our own will and not that of anyone else’s.

“If faith in sense is not first firmly set, if it does not prevail, there is nothing to which we can appeal in what we claim, by any form of mental reasoning, about the truth of things we cannot see.”

– Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

Lucretius was a materialist. He valued the primacy of the physical senses as the bedrock for all knowledge. Although I am not a materialist, I greatly value his contribution to methodological naturalism, which is now the substrate upon which modern science is grounded.

“But although I appreciated his detailed exposition very much, I still think it is more suitable to stop at individual points, in order to understand what each person concedes or denies; from such admissions, one may make the necessary deductions, and finally arrive at an appropriate conclusion. When the discourse gushes forth like a torrent, many subtle points are washed away. You hold on to nothing, and you grasp nothing; nowhere can you curb the speed of the onrushing rhetoric.”

– Cicero, On Ends

Here is Cicero decrying the usage of the Gish gallop, where a debater tries to overwhelm the opposition by sheer number of arguments, instead of the strength of each individual point within an argument. I wholeheartedly agree with his frustration!

“This is the touchstone of such a spirit; no prize fighter can go with high spirits into the fight if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the ring is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been knocked down in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.”

– Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

This quote is powerful and speaks for itself. Amazing imagery!

 “Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I like to view everything in life as either an opportunity for enjoyment, an opportunity for growth, or both. If I remember to do this, I can find a way to be grateful for whatever happens, and sometimes even excited despite less than favorable circumstances.

“The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the authority under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused of murder by any law of his state; nay, if he has not slain him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of despising the law.”

– Augustine, The City of God

If the government commands you to murder someone and you refuse, is this treason? Maybe. I definitely agree if you are a soldier in an active combat situation, it is necessary for there to be unquestioning obedience to orders, but I’m not sure how far this extends. I’m reminded of the Nuremberg trials.

“Tolerance is to not reveal the faults of others.”

– Huineng, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

Simple. Straightforward. Powerful. Are you tolerant of others? What about politicians? What about media figures? If you value tolerance and use the above definition, this cuts out a lot of everyday gossip, which is probably a good thing both for you and those you are discussing.

Namaste.

The following are quotes from the first seven books I skimmed. I think the quotes mainly speak for themselves, so I will try to limit my contribution to a minimum.

“The Self is everywhere, without a body, without a shape, whole, pure, wise, all knowing, far shining, self-depending, all transcending; in the eternal procession assigning to every period its proper duty.”

– The Upaniṣhads

The Upanishads frequently discuss the relationship of the personal self to the Universal Self. As a panendeist, I found it fascinating to read.

Tomorrow I am going to start a new challenge. Growing up, I was an avid reader. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being one. I’m not sure if it was due to dry textbooks, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic back pain, or just pure disinterest, but I lost the thrill of reading.

For this month’s challenge, I am going to take a reading dive that to many might seem dull, but which I find captivating: philosophy texts. More specifically, I find the study of philosophy to be fascinating; books may or may not be.

Here are the parameters for the challenge:

1. Sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Kindle Unlimited. All of the books I will be reading from are available for free or under $1 with this subscription. What this means is that I will be reading mostly from a screen, which isn’t optimum for eye health or skimming, but is incredibly cheap and accessible.

2. Each day, select a book from the following list:

• The Upaniṣhads (8th to 1st century BCE)
• Bhagavad-Gītā (5th to 3rd century BCE)
• Confucius, Analects (c. 500 BCE)
• Plato, Last Days of Socrates (399 BCE)
• Plato, Republic (380 BCE)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (350 BCE)
• The Daodejing: A short book on Daoist philosophy (c. 300 BCE)
• Epictetus, Discourses (108 CE)
• Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (50 BCE)
• Cicero, On Ends (1st century BCE)
• Seneca, Letters from a Stoic (c. 65 CE)
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (161-180 CE)
• Augustine, The City of God (426)
• Huineng, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (8th century CE)
• Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
• Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1677)
• Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1690)
• Hume, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
• Rousseau, Émile, or On Education (1762)
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
• Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov (1880)
• William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
• Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
• Bertrand Russell, The problem of philsophy (1956)
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

3. Spend at least 1hr/day skimming the book. My goal is not to consume, but to nibble. I am not at all interested in reading for reading’s sake. I want to taste the thoughts from thinkers of ages past and expand the way I view myself. The hour of skimming can be spread out as much as needed during the day.

4. Publish a blog post each week of the challenge. The content will be whatever I have gleaned that week from my readings and musings thereupon. What I write about doesn’t have to be super insightful – just my feelings and thoughts about the books or the excerpts I read from them.

5. Choose 2-3 of the books to put on my purchase list. If I want to read a physical copy of a book, it is more economical for me to borrow it from a library, assuming it is available. However, I do want to develop my own library of books I find especially interesting, meaningful, or that I might want to reread in the future.

6. Restart high-intensity exercise for at least 10 minutes a day. In order for me to glean the most out of my reading this month, my body needs to be in shape. Since my accident, I have become extremely sedentary. This needs to change and this challenge is the motivation I need to do so.

“The mind is just like a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.”
~ Idowu Koyenikan

Namaste.