The World Is Not in Your Books

Reading books is important. It’s where past knowledge and wisdom has been written down. You can learn a lot from reading books. But books are static, and there is much to learn that cannot be written down.

The real world is found outside, not inside books. It’s chaotic—constantly changing and evolving. The only way to adapt is to engage with the world, making mistakes, and learning through trial and error. Real understanding comes from experience.

In the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Skin in the Game:

And the contact with the real world is done via skin in the game—having an exposure to the real world, and paying a price for its consequences, good or bad… The abrasions of your skin guide your learning and discovery, a mechanism of organic signaling, what the Greeks called pathemata mathemata (“guide your learning through pain,” something mothers of young children know rather well).

I still love reading, and books continue to shape my thinking. But reading is not an end in itself. It’s a good starting point and foundation to build upon through real-world engagement. Experience is what shapes life.

Food for Thought

A podcast that never fails to trigger wanderlust in me is this one between Henry Rollins and Joe Rogan, especially the first hour. He is definitely someone who has let abrasions of the skin guide learning and discovery.