In today’s world, speed is king. We consume information the way we consume fast food – quickly, easily, and often with minimal satisfaction. Podcasts, video summaries, bite-sized blog posts, and endless social media scrolls all promise to save time. After all, time is money, right? So why would anyone in their right mind sit down to read a long-form article or, heaven forbid, an entire book?
The answer lies in the difference between knowing, understanding, and making sense of the world. We live in an era where knowledge is abundant – trivially accessible at our fingertips – but understanding requires a deeper, richer journey. It takes more than a quick glance at the facts to truly comprehend what they mean. True sense-making involves not just knowing the facts but connecting them, following the author’s thread of thought, tracing the lineage of their influences, and allowing time to reflect on how it all fits into the broader context.
Book summaries and audio snippets have their place, no doubt. They’re useful when you need a quick grasp of ideas or foundational knowledge. They let you dip your toes into the vast ocean of information without getting soaked. But if you truly want to dive deep – if you want to swim through the currents of thought rather than just skim across the surface – you need to slow down and engage with the full text. You need to appreciate the nuance that only long-form writing can offer.
Think of long-form reading as an invitation into someone’s mind. It’s not just about the “what,” but the “why.” Why did they choose this topic? Why did they structure their argument in this way? Why does their thinking unfold as it does? Understanding the “why” isn’t just valuable – it’s essential. Summaries provide a secondhand interpretation of what matters, but the original text? That gives you firsthand access to the author’s intentions, where the true depth lies.
When you read a book or a long article, you experience not just the points being made, but the flow of thought itself. There’s a reason paragraphs turn into chapters, and why ideas are introduced gradually and developed. It’s not just about putting information in your head; it’s about understanding the natural progression of an argument, how one idea builds on another, and how these ideas combine to form something larger than their individual parts.
Take, for example, a book on leadership. A summary might tell you that the author advocates for empathetic leadership and lists five key traits of great leaders. Useful? Absolutely. But does it explain how the author arrived at those traits? What they learned from their experience or research? How one trait might occasionally conflict with another and how those contradictions are resolved in practice? Long-form reading gives you time and space to unravel these layers, to sit with them, and reflect.
This kind of reading also invites you to do something fast information rarely does: situate yourself within the content. As you engage deeply with the text, you might agree with certain arguments and push back against others. You begin to see how the author’s experiences, inspirations, and references shape their perspective – and crucially, how your own experiences shape yours. Books and long-form articles allow you the time to reflect, to consider your own context in relation to the ideas being presented. Where do you stand in this narrative? How do your experiences resonate with or challenge what you’re reading?
And that’s just one part of it. Sense-making doesn’t stop at understanding the author’s perspective or finding your place within the text. It’s also about envisioning the future. A well-crafted long-form piece doesn’t just conclude when the last page is turned. It leaves doors open, inviting you to continue the journey, to explore new questions that the work has raised, to take the author’s ideas and expand upon them. What could future work in this area look like? What new insights might be built on these foundations?
No author writes in isolation. They are influenced by the thinkers, texts, and experiences that came before them. By immersing yourself in long-form writing, you begin to see these connections – how ideas build on each other over time, across disciplines. It’s like stepping into a conversation that’s been happening for centuries, and realizing you, too, have something meaningful to add.
If there’s one thing we’re losing in this age of instant gratification, it’s the ability to engage with complexity. Complexity doesn’t lend itself to summaries, nor does it shrink into sound bites. It requires time, effort, and patience to sit with an idea long enough to fully understand it. But that’s why it’s so rewarding. In a world constantly demanding more from us in less time, long-form reading is an act of quiet rebellion. It’s a reminder that some things cannot – and should not – be rushed.
So the next time you find yourself reaching for a summary or skimming through headlines, ask yourself: am I content with knowing the gist, or do I want to understand the full picture? Am I simply trying to fill my mind with information, or am I trying to make sense of it? If it’s the latter, the answer is clear: slow down, sit down, and read.
Because true understanding is found not in the speed of consumption, but in the art of taking time.