Minimalist language learning

The other day, I was out for a walk in the woods. The noise and the hectic pace from the city were far away ... and so were stress, worries and distraction.  After a while, by breathing in fresh air and listening to the peaceful sounds of nature, my mind became calm and clear. There was no past. No future. I was in the here and now. Places like forests are alive. And yet, they are very different from our cities, which are also full of life. But it's a different kind of life. Sometimes, it can be very hectic and stressful. Things and people are constantly trying to get our attention. We lose sight of what really matters to us and this causes dissatisfaction . In some cases, we don't even know why we are feeling this way.  We just do what we think what we need to do. Or what other people expect from us. Or what we think what they expect from us. We just try to function. We strive for our goals and dreams. And are feeling inferior , because we weren't able to fulfill ...

Many language learners will probably agree, that reading is important. Reading helps to expand your vocabulary and familiarize yourself with sentence patterns and much more. That's why language learners are encouraged to read as much as possible. 
 But when it comes to the question what kind of content one should read, everybody has his own opinion. Some people advise to read simple texts first (like graded readers, children's books, ... ). Others prefer to read whatever they like, no matter how difficult it is (like novels, mangas, news, video games, ... ). 
 Personally, I try to mix content of different levels of difficulty. I like to read the News Web Easy articles (simplified versions of news articles from NHK) but I also like the interesting articles about science and history from National Geographic , which is much much more difficult to read.  I love video games like Ace Attorney, for example. This game is very text heavy and — in contrast to other games — you ha...