The way I view and consume content is somewhat different from most people. An even better way to describe is that I like to have my content consumption to be condensed and supercharged. When I recommend or discuss fiction with online or AFK friends this doesn't come up. But when it comes to non-fiction I've noticed that I'm at an odd place. I actually started writing this post when 
I consider him to be one the greatest teachers of modern times and I still haven't read a single book written by him. I understand him and I'm a big fan of him and I know that nothing is going to convince me that he is anything other than a great human being and this is actually one of many cases. I've talked about OSHO and I'm a massive fan and the only complete work of him I've read is a long text named Ego - The False Center while I was 10th grade or something.
I'm far from a blind follower and its not easy to get me hyped. I've called Lightning Network a joke that was taken too seriously and I've been trashing incompetence left and right. Here is one example: https://steemit.com/blockchain/@vimukthi/aeron-arn-review-in-depth-analysis-investing-after-the-safest-year-in-aviation-in-history
The Difference in content consumption AKA Hyper Efficient Content Consumption
There are cybersecutiry penetration tests for network security and stress tests to benchmark and test the scalability and performance of a product/network/service and in the lives of humans there are moments that truly reveal who these people actually are. Generally these events happens to be an extreme point in their life like tragedy or accomplishment or it could be an unexpected shock event. Maybe it could be a challenge they take upto themselves like Idris Elba becoming a kickboxer in 12 months.
When I consume content I instinctively seek these kind of moments. I'm a massive sucker for information overload. I love having fed so much content at once and having to re-read/re-watch them instantly. There was one episode in Ghost in the Shell: SAC use the word "I" to give sort of a monologue about him who is his father and how his father became him. The subtitles ended up color coding the word "I" to make it easier to digest. This was a speech involving futuristic tech, politics and illnesses along with military tactics related content which also dressed personal transformation and human identity. I was feeling ecstatic pressing the rewind key.
Any good teacher/philosopher/leader etc has a core with basics and fundamentals. When you know about the elements and subatomic particles involved, you can know many things without running tests. I chemistry class we were taught certain basics on things that affect the behavior of atoms and after we were capable of predicting things on our own, we were taken to the lab to show that the conclusions we came to were accurate. When you really understand the core pillars and principles of a person, you can make up the kind of content that thinking would produce.
When I spent my time on that single long text written by OSHO I understood the kind of thinking that produced it. I knew that its true and I easily connected with the kind of thinking of OSHO. I can't really say I learnt anything new. But it certainly clarified years worth of pondering that has gone inside my head and I finally had someone nailing it home. The post was everything I wanted it to be. I had only learnt the word ego some hours ago and I already knew practically everything I needed to know. Sometime later I read some quotes and I really got where he was coming from.
I accidentally came across the name Peter Thiel and I read some quotes mostly from his book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. I recommend the book left and right and when it comes to startups and entrepreneurship I swear by the book and consider it a sort of a bible and I haven't touched the book. I haven't bought it. When people put the quotes on goodreads.com or brainyquote.com or whatever, it tends to be the best of that book, movie, person etc. Quotes are like an old photo book from the time before digital cameras. It captures a person's life at heightened moments.
I love seeing compilation videos, tributes and ASMVs on YouTube. Take a look at the following compilation about pretty much "The person who should have been president". If you don't know the guy, his name is Ron Paul and he's a legend.
After seeing the video answer me this question: If you could, would you vote? Don't drag additional contexts. Just pick one
- Yes
- No
- Not sure
It would be really odd to see a normal sensible person picking option C. If you know anything about politics and economics and has 12 minutes and 13 seconds to spare, you could have formed an informed opinion. No need to follow a massive campaign. The video could be called a TL;DR on Ron Paul.
This is the best tool to become a Polymath AFAIK
Some people can't manage a simple restaurant or even a lemonade stand and some people manage multi-billion dollar empires. I'm still a young millennial and I already know about Economy, Technology, Philosophy, Astronomy, Spirituality, Quantum Mechanics, Psychology, Novels, Video Games, Movies, Television, Investing, History and few more topics. I can assure you that I didn't reach this point in my life by formally learning these stuff step by step.
My methods won't be suitable for every personality type. Some people wants to take it slow. Some could use it as a learning tool. Only a very few would make it into practically a lifestyle of digging out the best of best of various great figures. At its core its an obsessive commitment with a single focus. You focus on the best someone/something has to offer and think about how and why it become what it is. Sometimes it's just a simple idea. iPhone was a PDA with UX and hardware features polished to the max and iPad was taking an idea from an all in one PC and shrinking a laptop screen into a halfway iPhone or you could simply call it Steve Jobs needed a bigger screen to use the iPhone like a laptop screen. I don't know how Jobs came up with the project. But the point is that it's a simple idea like a fidget spinner or a Rubik's Cube.
Despite all the vanity in the world and despite stupidity is propped up all over the place by MSM, there is still a lot of greatness left in this world and I know that I don't have enough time. We would pass through our lives in days, years and decades; but its really the "Moments" that we all remember.
https://www.goodreads.com
https://www.brainyquote.com
https://en.wikiquote.org
Are all great places I regularly use. I also try YouTube for best of compilations like this one:
Reading/watching a magnum opus is another great way. You can experience an artist at his/her best. Sometimes a single speech by a speaker can contain a massive portion of that person's life's philosophy. That philosophy will be a construct of decades of hard work. These days nobody is re-inventing the light bulb. People read it off a book and then try to make something even beyond. Instead of following the thought process or the life of a great human being, I'm more interested in asking "What is your Dharma?". I need to know where that person ended up. I want to know the conclusion. Everybody has a journey. Anybody can keep wandering around. Without a destination, a journey is devoid of meaning. Knowing the destinations reached by various individuals is like getting a map for yourself. It will make your life grow faster and it will make learning hell a lot easier.