Digging Roots

I began re-reading Seneca again to great delight! I feel it needs to be read like poetry, lingering on each sentence giving it equal weight and thought by which it was written.

One of the first letters on time affirms my transition to more re-reading and re-writing. The idea that a plant can't take root when constantly shifting. That it's good to get awareness of the new and exotic but need to grow our roots deep to have depth of fulfillment in life.

Personally I love variety. I hardly ever watch a show or movie twice or read a book twice, with a couple exceptions:

I would read Douglass Crockfords "the Good Parts" every year for about four years and observed that every time I read it I would get different lessons from it because my context had drastically changed. In a sense, it wasn't me reading the book again, it was a different person reading the book each time.

The second exception is that my wife and I enjoy watching the entire Harry Potter series over the holidays each year. This is a much different experience but now I can't imagine the holidays without Harry Potter, it's our version of all the tradition around Santa. I've also noticed not matter how many times I watch these films, I'll be surprised by some detail I had forgotten.

The key take-away here is to keep a list of works that you know are high value not only now but will be in the future and dig your roots into this core.

And if you need a place to start, Seneca in my opinion, is a fantastic example.