The Illusion of Understanding
The Common Reading Problem
Suppose you are reading a book or a blog or a paper, and you come across a term / concept you dont know about. The following lines would have some details about it. Like a one liner to describe it briefly and then some lines related to the book's context with that term.
Does it happen that when you read it all, you only remember what the term is called, sometimes even forget that, and don't properly get the idea about the term / concept?
Happens a lot with me.
A Concrete Example: Shokunin
A recent example being, I was reading the book Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World and I came across the term Shokunin,
a Japanese term for a highly skilled artisan or craftsman who is dedicated to achieving mastery of their chosen craft and feels a deep, often spiritual, commitment to their work and its contribution to the broader community
The following lines in the book I didn't understand properly. But then I paused and did a google search(Yes no LLM prompting!!) and found this article Shokunin and Devotion. A quick read of it gave me a good context on what the term means. Now when I came back to the book's paragraph I was able to grasp it completely.
The Pattern of Passive Reading
Often when you come across some new / unfamiliar things you tend to be a bit passive / lazy and just quickly read it. Maybe you try to read it once again if you didn't understand and then skip.
The Simple Solution
But I think you should take 5 minutes and refer an external source(prompt or luckily finding a good article) and then come back to it. This helps you to grasp the concept and somehow make a connection in your brain which stays with good enough strength.
If we just avoid being lazy and spend some extra time we can understand things better and utilize our time productively.