“To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with light and superficial knowledge,..”
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, “Meditations
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It is commonly argued that in reading, as in any kind of studying and almost any kind of activity, the Pareto principle dictates that 80% of the results (e.g. knowledge) can be obtained during the first 20% of the time (or 20% of the total possible effort) spent on the activity. After the initial 20%, the returns are progressively diminished, so that larger amounts of time spent reading provide only incremental increase in knowledge.
While tis is probably true, I believe, or at least would like to believe, that striving for deep, fundamental knowledge is what separates true experts from lay people. Of course, the question of whether it is wise to focus on obtaining expertise in a narrow field (i.e. “niching down” in photography) remains open. However, if this niche is learning itself, and the skill that we are mastering is our ability to learn new skills, the rules start to change. Learning, according to Naval Ravikant, among others, is a wild card, a joker, in a sense that learning can be traded for any skill that is needed at any given point in life. From this perspective, it is easy to agree with Stoics, who taught that “Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live;..” (Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”).
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