The past year has brought so many transformations into my life that it is hard to believe it was just a single year. I finally started reading again. And reading brought with it a lot of other changes.
My parents raised me with a love for reading. But as I got busier with each year, the time required to dedicate my attention to reading was harder and harder to find. Reading takes effort, especially when you don’t do it often. White, boring, static pages are not what my mind wants to focus on.
I’ve read almost nothing in the last few years, but I didn’t care enough to try and change it. I knew that a new reading wave would come rushing at me, envelop and drag me back into the ocean of books. This wave came in January.
I’ve read a book on Chinese legends during the holidays. I’ve enjoyed the relaxing process so much that I dug up the pile of books my friend gave me. The first one was "Flowers for Algernon".
This book made me realize that I am a fool for not using my ability to learn. I’ve felt shamed by Charlie for stagnating in my tracks and ignoring the feast of knowledge. There is so much I don’t know, yet I’ve been content with the little crumbs that I had in my pockets.
My most framing changing books
I’ve kept reading and reading for the whole year. Reading a book on a topic quickly became my favorite way of immersing myself in a subject. Here are the most important contributors to the refraiming of my mind throughout this year:
Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker
For me, it is much easier to follow rules when you know why the rules were created in the first place. This is especially the case with sleep, and this book helped me to stop treating sleep like trash and finally recognize it for all its achievements in my life.
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
I really enjoy this book’s writing style. The story is presented as diary entries, written by the main character. It is a common trope, but in the case of Charlie, it plays as an important narrative device, showcasing the advancement of his mental capabilities. At first, it is hard to understand what the boy means, but as the story progresses, so does the writing.
Atomic Habits, James Clear
Besides the first two chapters (when I’m sold on the idea, I don’t want to be sold on it more!!), this book offers a high concentration of great actionable rules of thumb for forming, sticking to, and removing your habits. And since our life is almost nothing else but habits, having a systematic understanding of them is of great help.
Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport
I deleted all my social media and sold my smartphone after reading this book. If you are interested in more details, I wrote a little blog post on the topic. I really enjoyed the term technopoly, that I first came across in this book. In basic terms, a technopoly is a cultural state of mind that assumes technology is always positive and of value. I’ve truly stopped asking the question of "do we need this new thing?" and have replaced it with "how can I better use this new thing?".
The Shallows, Nicholas Carr
Sadly, I’ve found this gem so late. It is a great companion read to "Digital Minimalism". Published in 2010, before the widespread usage of smartphones and Instagram, the book talks about the effect that the internetification of everything has on us, physically. It takes a look at how our tools have shaped society, the history of reading, the discovery of neuroplasticity, and much more. 15 years later, the book aged gracefully and is as important a wake-up call as it has ever been.
Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey
I will be honest, I did not expect much from this book. I’ve read it in a very cheap paper edition, and it looked like a cheap read. Also, the book is tiny. I judged it by its cover. But it turned out to be a very nice high-level overview of two different "modes" of our brain: intense focus on one thing and a relaxed wandering mind. It provided me with a lot of great abstractions that helped me to think about my work. It also helped me to finish up some leftover thoughts I had from "Deep Work" by Cal Newport.
Structured Computer Organization, Andrew Tanenbaum
When I’ve reached some basic level of understanding how to develop things, I stopped respecting programming books for various reasons. But this year I’ve been catching up on them. A lot of them helped me to shift my perspective on the design of software, but this classical work by Andrew Tanenbaum dwarfed everything else for me.
Years ago, an author of my beloved "Game Programming Patterns" started writing a new book about creating your own programming language. Throughout the years, I’ve written countless iterations of my own language, based on this book, lit (and most recently, a joke language funk). The book removed the curtain from the "magic black box" of compilers and made me understand and appreciate how code is converted into machine-specific representation.
And "Structured Computer Organization" did the same for me, but for computers as a whole. As much as I don’t want to admit it now, computers have been a black box for me too. Sure, I knew and loved the physical level, all the various OR and XOR gates, I understood the programming level, and with the help of "Crafting Interpreters" and some development I started to understand the compilation level, but I couldn’t imagine how you would take and develop a full modern PC from scratch. This book didn’t answer all my questions, but it provided a great overview of all the virtual abstraction layers. "Digital Design and Computer Architecture" by David & Sarah Harris helped me to fill in the remaining gaps of understanding.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
An immense collection of examples, of why and how people make wrong judgments, and why we don’t always act rationally. It is a bit dry and hard to read, but the insights it provides into your own thinking are priceless.
Toki Pona, Sonja Lang
Toki pona is a constructed language, designed to be as simple as possible, while still remaining versatile and useful. Toki means "language, speech, greeting" and "pona" means "good, fix". So the language name spells "good language". It contains around 120 words (the community uses some additional new words), so I’ve learned the vocabulary relatively quickly. Since you only have so many words, the language can’t include nouns like "miner" or "scientist". So these words are constructed on the fly from simpler words, and there are a lot of ways to phrase the same thing. But since the building blocks are very simple, you can understand what the other person means very easily. For example, a scientist could be referred to as "jan pi kama sona" or "person of obtaining knowledge".
Sadly, I’ve only been able to get my hands on a translated version of this book, and it has been altered heavily. One day I will obtain all 3 Sonja Lang’s books and be a happy boy.
The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin
Best science fiction I’ve read in a long, long time. Those three books manage to tell a story with our current technology level, that is believable and grounded, while being insanely high-stakes and innovative. I can’t give it enough praise, and I don’t want to spoil it. But I’ve written another blog post about the second book of the trilogy.
Besides books
I’m seriously running low on time before the year ends, so here is a quick list of other exciting things from the past 365 days:
- Finally purchased an OP-1!
- Modded a Game Boy Color, bought a Steam Deck
- Ran my first half-marathon, preparing for a full one next summer
- After Toki Pona started, I began learning ancient Greek and Latin
- Since I gave up my phone, I turned back to tapes and vinyl for my music listening
- Found interest in programming again, currently learning Vulcan
In conclusion
I still have to think a lot about everything that I’ve learned this year. It turns out I don’t really "think deeply" all that much, and I’m trying to change that. I’m experimenting with all the new tools I’ve acquired, both mentally and physically.
I’m about to change my job, and I’m excited about it. I’m slowly getting back into game development, and I have a lot of thoughts on what works for me and what doesn’t in terms of the development process.
I will come back to all of this in January, but until then, I need to take a big break! See you next year!