Read more

How often do we hit a button that says “Read more” or “Learn more”?

My motivation to read got recently majorly re-kindled by a series of events. I already had quite a few books, mostly audiobooks on Scribd, saved for later. Then I watched Eric Weinstein’s conversation with Werner Herzog on his new podcast The Portal (Apple Podcasts, YouTube).

Herzog makes a convincing case for reading, in general. Note how he is hammering it in with his hand gestures going from cutting to praying.

Werner Herzog:

Yes, watch films and do whatever you need to do in technical terms, but read, read, read, read, read, read. If you don’t read, you will be a film maker, but mediocre at best.

Click on the image to see that part of the conversation.

Herzog has some more thoughts on reading and even what to read, but I will leave the option to “Learn more” up to you.

The mentioned required reading list for his Rogue Film School can be found on its about page, item 10.

Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list. Required reading: Virgil’s “Georgics”, Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, and Baker’s “The Peregrine” (New York Review Books Edition published by HarperCollins). Suggested reading: The Warren Commission Report, “The Poetic Edda”, translated by Lee M. Hollander (in particular The Prophecy of the Seeress), Bernal Diaz del Castillo “True History of the Conquest of New Spain”.

And if you happen to know about the context or some background to this, also from the about page of the Rogue Film School, please send me email or DM on Twitter.

Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.

What is the nature of Herzog’s censorship and contempt? I may find out more reading The Guide to the Perplexed.