Whats The Point Of Finishing A Book

Unless you want to, of course.

But when people begin posting their tapestry of all the books they’ve read in the year to social media, it’s a vanity metric, as Nadal Ravikant says in this clip from Joe Rogan.

Naval spent his post-school time as a child in the library, where he read everything he possibly could. He did this to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and when a book no longer served this value, he moved on. He says he has 60-70 books “open” at any point on his Kindle. He flits between all these different tomes given his mood.

I’d like to say that I read books to completion but it’s not true. I do the same thing Naval does, though when I do finish a book, I feel victorious.

But really, it’s the book and its author that should feel victorious: they held my attention long enough to exhaust the contents of the book.

And that’s quite an achievement.