Literally join a bookclub or reading group. That's the number one thing that helps. See if your local dsa is having one, or there's also the Marxist Education Project which is doing things online because covid.

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You should treat Capital vol1 2 and 3 as reference books rather than attempting to read them start to finish. Want to understand what surplus value is? Go to the index and look up surplus value then read everywhere its mentioned. Want to understand price go to the index etc.

Though if you're going to read them start to finish understand what Marx is doing..... he is taking each piece out of the Capitalist system and showing it to you like a piece from a car and explaining how it works whilst also explaining how it cannot work eg. this steering wheel cannot possibly be an exhaust because there is no piping to push out the fumes etc

If you were to read a car manual to understand how a car works it would inevitably be boring....But you would still want to know what the function of your radiator and wheels is

I don't really think you should read capital until you have read a Selected works copies which have been laid out correctly and broken up to show what Marx and Engels philosophical world outlook was. These are laid out in such a way that they are entertaining with Marx giving a detailed historical materialist analysis of the Civil War In France and the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Selected works in 2 volumes I recommend (though get physical copies of them if you can)

Vol 1 https://archive.org/details/swmarxengels1/page/589/mode/2up

Vol 2 https://archive.org/details/swmarxengels2/page/493/mode/2up

And again whilst these can be read quite pleasurably from start to finish but you can still use them as textbooks to search in the index to see what they say on the nature of the State, the Dictatorship of the proletariat, commodities, industry etc.

Podcasts help me when I can't focus.

Some of us are reading theory on stream. @BrookeBaybee for instance. I’ve been talking about a stream theory reading group for a while, in hopes of making it more digestible.

I know there was a group reading last year organized by @marxisthayaca, i think? Keeping it as a group activity should help.

Old theory can be tough, because it is old. Das Kapital was published in 1867. Lenin's work is from the early 20th century. Both were originally written in foreign (to US based readers) languages. These factors conspire with the already somewhat dry nature of the material to make them tough for modern readers.

In addition to the strategies mentioned by other users here, I suggest seeking out more modern theory. Murray Bookchin is a good example if you're interested in anarchism, Michael Parenti is more of a traditional marxist (or so I'm told, I haven't read his work personally)

There are others as well, if you look for writers in that vein, you'll surely find them.

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, so I'd like to give a shout out to Red Menace Podcast .

Brett and Alyson really do some excellent primary text analysis where they explain key concepts "in plain English." I've found that listening to their analysis - along with reading along with it myself - helps me a lot.

Ideally, reading these texts should be a communal activity for a variety of reasons;

-motivation and accountability to stick with it, even when it gets difficult to
-more diverse perspectives on the text itself help everyone come to a deeper understanding of it
-the praxis part inherently necessitates other people outside yourself, the earlier you get together the better
-some dialogue/conversation relating the texts to contemporaneity will inevitably emerge, which is very much the point

All that being said, I personally enjoy listening to others discuss texts too, so good podcasts have been pretty instrumental for me personally, as I can pair them with mindless menial everyday tasks like housework.

Theory ASMR

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Thank you @Grownbravy for tagging me on here.

I learned this when I was full-on in Artist hobbyist mode, an instructor said that mental health is very important, and getting yourself taken care of and being in the right headspace should definitely be a thing you prioritize before moving forward. I like to think the concept applies across disciplines. So if you have blurry vision or mental health issues, do what you can to make it right.

Reward structures, it's something i'll probably study in the near future within my grad school program; but for the time being, I'd say having an intrinsic locus of motivation rather than extrinsic. That is, you want to get better at theory because it will be inherently good to you or a project you are working on (food not bombs needs better organizing, the defund the police group is getting taken over by libs, DSA Commie caucus needs some new folks, etc). Alternatively, you could do book clubs. The Chapo.chat discord server/ark from the banned days is still active and it is nominally connected to the /c/books community. You can join their reading group and meet over discord. I read Pedagogy of the Oppressed twice just so I could talk to them :).

You can also join the Perusall Book Club. We have 450+ books on theory (and some light reading) as well as some video content. The book club was started in /r/CTH and we went through Capital Vol. 1, Wage, Labour and Profit, State and Revolution, Shock Doctrine, and a few others. The Perusall tool allows people to annotate in the margins, so if you read ANY of those books you'll have old marginalia from other comrades, to either clarify or argue with (I know I still check my perusall emails occasionally).

I am a big, HUGE, proponent of marginalia and annotation. It's why I found Perusall and Hypothes.is. I now annotate pretty much everything in my life (digital or physical books). So I'd recommend that as a note-taking strategy. Your margin notes can be anything from agreeing or disagreeing, question marks for further reading, highlight dope-ass quotes, and essay length comments relating your understanding to the book or piece of literature in question. Ultimately the point of absorbing all this theory is to either write about it at length, condense it into propaganda, or explain it to other people. And marginalia and writing will help you practice your communication.

One additional piece of advice I'd give, google the title of the book or theory literature you are reading + study guide, or look up podcasts about leftist theory. If the book is well known, you'll have some additional resources that might help you clarify outstanding questions.

If you want to search out for a small scale book club or form your own. PLEASE tag me on /c/books and I'll pin your request to the top.

How do I get an adhd diagnosis? A psychiatrist? What do I say? I suspect I have it

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