warning — effort required

Seth Godin discusses Cliffs Notes and how these could be a path to better understanding.

Used as intended, Cliffs Notes and Quicklit were a gold mine of insight. They opened the door for real understanding, and often got to the heart of the literature better than an overworked high school teacher might be able to. —The Cliffs Notes Paradox

But he also notes that even with the widespread availability of these notes, insight in overall society has not improved. When I was in college, I majored in the Arts while most of the students were in engineering or science at Royal Roads Military College. Our cohort was about 25 students and on entering second year, I was given a barrack box filled with Cliffs Notes (and Coles Notes) for our entire curriculum. As the ‘keeper of the notes’ I was responsible for their safe-guarding and adding to the collection. It was a great responsibility.

The notes helped me pass some exams but little insight was gained. The literature I remember best are the books I read completely, like the short Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or the longer A History of Western Philosophy. As Godin concludes, “It doesn’t matter how much we summarize, at some point, effort is required. More summaries won’t automatically lead to more understanding.”

In the book Range, David Epstein states that, “learning is most efficient in the long run when it is inefficient in the short run”. For me, the act of writing forces me to think a bit more than clicking once and having it served up from an automated system. The process of seeking out information sources, making sense of them through some actions, and then sharing with others to confirm or accelerate my knowledge are manual activities, requiring effort on my part.

Managing and sharing information artifacts, such as blog posts — especially through conversations — are fundamental processes for my sensemaking. The strength of personal knowledge mastery is not what tools we use, but how each of us seek > sense > share knowledge. Sensemaking frameworks have to take effort because that is how human learning is wired. There is no Red Pill.