Pareto Psalms
Sift the few - don't fear missing out on quantity; fear missing depth.
A most common feeling these days is FOMO - the fear of missing out.
It's that quiet panic that creeps in when you realize just how little time you have to take in the endless stream of content now available on demand: all those unread books, unplayed games, unwatched shows, unheard music.
The sheer abundance of it all makes it feel like you're always behind.
...But I don't think this kind of FOMO makes sense.
I'd argue the fear is misplaced. You're not likely missing out on much.
Think of the songs you like. I'm sure there are many.
Now think of the albums that you like. That list is probably harder to summon.
Why? Because musical albums are rarely memorable in themselves:
Most music albums are just cohesive mixed bags of an artist's output - snapshots of an artist's creative phase.
Unless you're dealing with carefully-designed epics, most albums do not set out to make each track as stellar.
Many albums contain a few 'good' songs - pieces that grow on you over time, through familiarity and repeated listening. These may become cult or personal 'classics'. But more often, albums are padded with passable songs, or forgettable ones entirely.
Some albums might have only one great song. Which is enough sometimes (since a single standout can completely eclipse everything else and even define the entire career of musicians). At that point, we remember the song - not the album.
So it is the rare occasion when you recall the album itself as great, separate from its contents. (The lasting popularity of Metallica's Black Album feels like a good example of this.)
The point: you still haven't missed much by not listening to all songs on all albums.
This is the reality of art: it succumbs to taste. And taste makes it statistically unlikely for every song in a mixed bag to resonate with you equally.
Yes, you might have missed out on a few greats, but those could have surfaced anyway through more curated means (e.g. radio stations, fan playlists, recommendations).
The same principle applies to books.
Books, like albums, are compilations of ideas. They share similar characteristics:
Most books are more fluff than meat.
There are many great books; but the majority are not.
Very few books are consistently insightful from cover to cover.
Now consider this through the lens of Pareto in compound - the 80%-20% rule.
If only 20% of everything is valuable, then that rule must apply to the contents of those great books too.
Thus if only 20% of the contents of those 20% of great books are themselves gold, then only a staggering 4% of things you read actually matter. The rest are padding.
Which means that even if you skip most books - or skim them - you're not missing out on as much as you think.
Charlie Munger was certainly on to something when he said this:
...Most books I don't read past the first chapter. I'm not burdened by bad books.
The average quality of content is not high.
So why feel that you must sift through everything to find what matters, when most of them don't matter?
FOMO is an unfounded feeling with media. I'd say, in this overwhelmingly abundant media era:
It's best to devote oneself to fewer items of interest - those wisely selected and curated, and which are dear to your heart in some way.
It's better to experience fewer books, deeply, right down to their spines, than to be a completionist who superficially flicks through papers in the most shallow unreflective manner possible.
Weigh which matters more to you: ticked checkboxes, or the personal transformation offered by books of depth.
Do not pine for experiences you are not even sure brings meaning to you. Focus on what you have.