I know it sounds like a new option on McDonald's "heart-attack-guaranteed" menu, but the Five Stack has nothing to do with feeding the stomach. It does, however, have everything to do with feeding the mind. (Cheesy, I know, but stay with me. Haha, get it? "Cheesy"...it's like a five-stack with cheese!).Wow...
Anyway, so the other day I was lamenting to my brother, Dave, that there are so many different topics that I want to study, but I don't have a good system for studying them. I love reading books, but I'm not very purposeful in the way that I read. I sort of just read whatever good book seems to be laying around at the time, without any systematic approach to what I'm reading or learning, if that makes sense. So, I wondered out loud to my brother if I should just choose a field of study, spend a few months reading all the books I could get my hands on surrounding that topic, and then move on to the next thing. For example, I really enjoy philosophy of religion. Should I just spend the next several months only reading that genre of books?
The immediate problem I saw with this idea was that it seemed like by adopting that method I would be forced to neglect other necessary areas of study, such as personal growth. Well, in the midst of my confusion, my bro dropped a knowledge bomb on me.
(A paraphrase)
Dave: What if you chose five different books from five different fields of study and read them concurrently?
MaxAC: Wait, you mean read them all at the same time? (I'm a little slow...)
Dave: Yeah, just stack them up. Read a few chapters from the first book, and then put it on the bottom of the stack. Next time you want to read, take the next book off the top of the stack and read a few chapters from that one. Then repeat the cycle until you've read all the books, at which point you can choose five more.
MaxAC: So, I'm just clarifying...read FIVE BOOKS AT ONCE?!?!
Dave: Uh, yeah.
Brilliant.
Thus, the Five Stack was born! To be honest, I've never done anything like this before. I'm the kind of guy who really has a hard time focusing on more than one thing at a time (I guess that just makes me a guy, huh?), but I'm trying this out as an experiment, testing my own ability to multi-task read. Just a few days in, I'm realizing that it's not so hard to keep these readings separate because they are all vastly different topics.
There's actually a lot more that I'd like to say, but this post is already reaching "too-long status." More to come soon...
2 comments:
That is a GREAT idea! I often get so frustrated when I am in the middle of a book because there are so many other books that I want to read as well. Sometimes I even stop reading a book so that I can start another one.
"The Five Stack" seems to help solve some of that problem. It is almost like we are back in Senior Sem with our stack of books researching for our papers; which I very much enjoyed that time.
The only question is...what books shall I add to the current stack?
Hey Tom! Yeah, I'm really loving this method of reading right now. One book that I would definitely suggest is "The Great Omission," by Dallas Willard. VERY challenging, and a great read. I also just finished both of Francis Chan's books, "Crazy Love" and "Forgotten God." If you haven't read either of those yet, I would suggest those, too!
By the way, we still need to hang out sometime! Expect an email from me soon.
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