Reading without taking notes is as good as not reading at all.

Think of the last text you read — a book, a chapter, an article, a blog post.

What do you remember about it?

What do you remember more clearly:

                    a) The text itself.
                    b) The circumstances in which you read it.
                    c) The feeling of accomplishment that came over you when you finished reading.

I, for one, do not remember the last book I read. (Or the last article, chapter, or blog post.)

Maybe I remember a title, a general topic, an author’s name — sometimes more.
But that one anecdote on such-and-such a page? The footnote with all the citations that seemed so promising? The statement of argument a third of the way through the introduction?

They’re gone. Like they never existed. And like we, therefore, never encountered each other.

Whenever I am reading something that I find to be of significant moment — something compelling, inciting, good — I make a text file on my computer.

In that file, I take notes on whatever strikes me about what I am reading. Beside each note, I write a page number. It ends up looking something like this:

[40]: Crusoe arrives on the island.
[72]: RC can’t believe there’s corn growing.
[75]: Can we consider this an immaculate corn-ception?

Sometimes I type direct quotes from the text. But often I only describe, in a few words, what is being discussed on a given page: analysis of a primary or secondary source, discussion of a concept, definition of a key term.

Later when I need to recall some details about something I’ve read, I’ve got a clear and easily accessible record of my reading.¹

What makes this process distinct, noteworthy, worthy of note? The following precept, which I try as hard as possible to adhere to:

That’s right. No underlining, no highlighting, no notes in the margins.

This is not in the interest of keeping a clean original document, digital or otherwise.

No — it is to prevent me from feeling like some work has been done when, in reality, no work has been done.

Underlining and highlighting feel great. They are easy. They feel like an accomplishment. But once you close a book or pdf, what do you have? Quickly fading memories.

Sure, you have books and pdfs full of marks. But to get to those marks, you’ll have to go back to the books/pdfs themselves — if you can find them.

And then, what do those marks really mean?

You’ll have to read the underlined/highlighted portions of text again in order to understand them.

And then, if you’re like me — and I assume you are — you will wonder half the time why you thought a passage was worth underlining/highlighting in the first place.

Why do a lot of extra work later when you can do a little extra work now?

I know the answer to this question, of course. It’s because you’re the now you, and you don’t care about the later you, and all the work that they may or may not have to do. Let them figure it out.

They’re going to be so mad…

There is a man who looks at me where I walk my dog in the park.

Near the French embassy, up the street from the university, he stands in a long black coat and hat, peering over a significant beard, maintained with care for decades, or so one can deduce from its stately sweep.

He is a painting on a wall. Less a mural or a portrait than an icon.

The wall marks the boundary of what was the Jewish ghetto in Vilnius, established during the Nazi occupation.¹

This representation, notably greater than life-size, is rendered in a stenciled style. It was placed here as a reminder of the kinds of lives that used to pass not just behind, through, around, and in front of walls like the one it appears on, but also—and perhaps most importantly—with no special regard for such things: unheeded and undetermined by the barriers such walls would become.

This painting—one of many in the area—has been given a nickname: “The Wise Man.” His arms are folded, his hands are tucked into opposing sleeves, his head is tilted knowingly. His posture is one of forbearance, as much as wisdom, or anything else. One feels suffered to look, but not to linger.

I pass him with the briefest acknowledgment and return home. He does not follow me.

This man’s likeness, it turns out, was drawn from an archival photograph.²

Upon learning this, I started to feel whatever life, wisdom, forbearance, and otherwise that the painting purported to represent drain out of that static, flattened artifact.

What of the real man, himself? Did he live in this sector? Or in this city? Was he wise? Did he, in his life, stand for what he has been made to stand for, now? And how, and to whom, did he convey whatever wisdom he might might have possessed?

Of what is this painting a reminder? Perhaps only a reminder to remember — which may be enough, and plenty, for a given moment.³