How to surf the web to find motivating and insightful content
By: Nityesh Agarwal
Tags: Motivation, Learning, Internet, Tech, Reading

Photo by Blake Hunter on Unsplash

“Wow! This was so cool!” my friend says. “How do you even find these things?” I tell him that I got it from the newsletter of <so-and-so> website where people post interesting stuff. And the next question goes, “Well, but how did you find out about the <so-and-so> website?” And then I end up telling him about this person on Twitter whom I follow and how she tweets interesting things and how she is SO cool. “Okay but how did you find out about this person?” …

And every time, the conversation comes to an abrupt end either because my friend stops asking further questions at the risk of seeming too dumb (and ends up giving me an unsatisfactory “Oh Wow” reaction) or because I fail to remember the exact source (and end up telling something along the lines of — “I just found it while… hmm… browsing on the Internet”).

What I also want to say is that these cool webpages/people that I come across can come to anyone.

But that sounds like patronizing. Not helpful.

And I want to say that it’s all just easy and effortless.

But to the friend, it seems difficult, even impossible.

So, I don’t think any of those are helpful responses to bring this chain of questions to a satisfactory ending.

And this has bugged me for a long time now — what response could bring such a chain of questions to a good end?

I think I have come up with a good solution now. But before I discuss the solution, allow me to convince you why you should read this 2329-worded article on finding “cool” content online.

Why you should care about reading cool stuff online?

The Importance of Reading

Charlie Munger, a long-time business partner to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, as been known to say, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.”

Warren Buffett’s formula for his success is to keep getting smarter by learning and knowing more everyday.

Naval Ravikant once said that he values no other way of learning more than reading prolifically.

In his advice article, Patrick Collison lists “Aim to read a lot” as one of the few pieces of advice that he would like to give 10–20 year olds.

I think every successful person emphasises on reading a lot. They talk about reading books like it is the secret of their success.

“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.” — Charlie Munger

Use the Internet to become “well-read”

But I believe that the Internet has amassed enough good, multi-dimensional content that a person can become well-read using the Internet.

The Internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it. — Patrick Collison

It is filled with high quality personal essays, blogs and micro-blogs, publications, communities of inspired people, interviews, newsletters. And it doesn’t stop at readable content.. you have podcasts, videos and beautifully designed websites. All there for you to consume and become wiser, a better version of yourself. All with a one-tap accessibility feature!

No, I am not being lazy. Neither am I arguing that the content over the Internet can replace the content present in good books.

I am simply asserting that if used well, Internet can provide you with content that is just as useful as books. If we can somehow just tap into this mega-ocean, the Internet can enable us to:

discover ourselves — search for what we love doing, find motivation to learn something new, be inspired and just be “around” people whom we admire (and even get admired back by them!)

— search for what we love doing, find motivation to learn something new, be inspired and just be “around” people whom we admire (and even get admired back by them!) be aware of the world — and I’m not simply talking about your daily news. I am talking about having an informed opinion about the direction in which the world is moving: the longer trends, the major global problems as they emerge, and the up-and-coming technologies.

— and I’m not simply talking about your daily news. I am talking about having an informed opinion about the direction in which the world is moving: the longer trends, the major global problems as they emerge, and the up-and-coming technologies. push the boundaries of our physical whereabouts — be able to get inspired by and shape our opinions based what some of the smartest people alive on the planet are saying.

But it is the vastness of the ocean that makes it so difficult to leverage this power of the Internet. And that is why this article.

So without further ado, let me present my answer to the question —

How to surf the Internet to find motivating and insightful content?

So here I have distilled the process of surfing into 4 rules that you should follow to be a good surfer.

4 Rules For Discovering Better Content over the Internet:

Well, they are not so much rules as they are 4 good practices that you should follow for discovering better content over the Internet. And here they are —

Go to the source and try to find the goose that laid the golden egg. If you liked something on some website, go check out its homepage and About page. If some person tweeted/posted something good on some social media, check out their profile. Every once a while you will hit jackpot and it is going to become your new source of constant new cool information. Follow the links and don’t be afraid of going deep into the rabbit hole. Interesting articles link to other interesting articles. Mind you, such links are often quite subtle, meaning that they don’t always explicitly read like “Check out <this link> to know more” but are present more inconspicuously as an underline on some word or phrase in the article. Google for stuff. It is more effortless and the results surprisingly more satisfying than you think. Whenever I wanted to know about something, Googling for it not only gives me the answer to it but also helps me discover something new related to it. Use Twitter. It is the media platform where some of the best thinkers (both popular and unknown) regularly publish their thoughts. No social media platform has that value proposition. Join it. Use it. Follow people of substance. And just as importantly, constantly weed out your timeline.

Don’t be afraid of doing the necessary housekeeping

So, Google is your oracle for pointing you in the right direction when you seek some information. Twitter is the aggregator that you go to when you don’t seek anything specific but still want to consume something of value. But they aren’t enough! You need to click links through to other links and navigate your way in the thick, amazonian forest in order to find a cave with the gems. And believe me, those are aplenty!