How do you know so much?

I read. Reading is the best medium. It forces other people’s thoughts through your own vocal-chords, magically reproducing their thoughts in your own head, like some magical thought playback engine. This process is better than passively watching other media like TV or listening to radio, because passive media lets you slip into couch-potato mode and doesn’t really replay the author’s thoughts as if they were your own original thoughts.

But you can’t just read anything—think how intensely personal a thought playback engine is! You don’t want someone slipping a virus into you, so you have to think of your reading life as a carefully directed adventure, skimming many headlines and blurbs here and there, then intelligently—like a bloodhound on a scent—sniffing out what you need to know and why. Then, take DEEP DIVES into carefully chosen material. Alternate betwen being critical and open-minded as necessary.

And I don’t mean just tech stuff. Seek out the classics, the genre-definers, the seminal works PLUS the new stuff defining our age, and the off-the-beaten-track stuff that makes all the difference. Use technology then to always have that reading material on you, filling in your down-time standing in lines, riding the train, and the like. Oh, and never believe at face value things people tell you. Verify! Even if… especially if… they sound credentialed.