What is the purpose of reading?

because I like reading since childhood, before adulthood, my parents and adults around me often ask me: what do you want to do when you grow up reading all day? Outsiders ask with some politeness and politeness, while my parents add a "to the end" before "what do you want to do", which means I usually don't realize what I'm good at. I just see me sitting on the sofa holding a book for half a day, but I can't eat reading. I'm a little worried about my way out in the future. And whenever adults ask me what I like to do, I answer to read books, they will always compliment me in front of my parents: this child is good, loves to learn. Then I will think, what is the relationship between reading and love of learning? I was born with a slight Oblivious of human logic, so I didn't understand until a few years ago that those people interpreted "reading" as "reading" out of politeness, and this "reading" is related to the traditional sense of "seeking merit and fame". Is synonymous with "learning".

my experience above shows that "reading" is different from "reading". The latter has a formal color in our culture, while the former often sandwiches the word "leisure" in the middle and becomes "reading idle books", which is born less upright-this "leisure" is the "leisure" of "idleness". It even has to be classified as "playful things". In people's impression, reading leisure books is a recreational activity that can only be carried out after a rich life. it is silly to read books that have nothing to do with study regardless of the future.

but I just love reading.

in my experience, "reading" is often associated with some unpleasant scenes, such as lying on a desk studying math problems or physics experiments, or, for example, whether in China or after coming to the United States, "reading" mostly takes place in the library. When I was in college in Beijing, I had to get up early every day to take a seat in the library and come back after breakfast to sit in the crowded study room on the second floor. I felt dizzy: there was a lot of nouns and theories waiting to be digested, in addition to the breakfast that had been swallowed in a hurry. But I couldn't digest them all at once, so I stuck them all in my stomach and heart, and it seemed that the nutrition of the food or the knowledge in the book could not be supplied to my brain at all. In the United States, going to the library is always a "battle". I live not near the campus, which is actually another town. so this generally involves making up your mind, packing your schoolbags, dressing, driving, walking around the streets near the school to find parking spaces, walking through the campus complex and walking into the library. It is conceivable that after I entered the library, I was so tired that I needed to have a rest immediately. Anyway, I had to have a cup of hot chocolate in the coffee shop affiliated to the Huada Library. Then, without reading a few pages, it might be time to eat or go home. So after a lot of trouble, the class teacher left.

as mentioned above, even excluding most of the external environment, "reading" must have at least a desk and an armchair. Even if it is not sitting upright, "reading" must have the appearance of "reading". Reading does not need so many additional conditions, at home, sofas, beds, bathrooms, are places to read books, outside, subway, bus, waiting room, as long as you have a book on hand, you can read it anytime and anywhere. After a long time, it will inevitably form some kind of dependence. You can't "read" a book at all when you sit at your desk. You have to put it on your arched knee, or open it and spread it on a cushion that you hold in your arms, while people are either cooped up on the sofa or half on the bed. In my first year of studying at St. Louis Huada University, I lived in a small one-room apartment. I didn't have a sofa and the bed was secondhand. It was not comfortable enough. I didn't read much books that year. The only books I read were course materials and materials read at the desk in the library. The next year I moved to a two-bedroom apartment and got a sofa before I started reading again.

after all, there is a big difference between books used to read and books that can only be "read". Generally speaking, learning and using books can only be "read", and I have hardly come across a textbook that can be read as enjoyably as reading a novel. In addition to the teaching materials, there are also some serious works or academic books that deserve to be read over and over again, and they are also very popular, such as some social science non-fiction works and psychology books in the United States, which are generally classified by me as "reading". I haven't specifically thought about the basis of my division, which may depend on whether I am willing to open a book in a comfortable and relaxing place like a sofa or bed. The question of willingness also applies to being away from home. After all, most books are not light, they are willing to carry around on their backs and carry heavy loads on their bodies, and they may not have the opportunity to take them out and read them. It must be a book that you like, is attractive, and can be read with interest every time you open a page.

when it says "reading" in the title, it actually means "reading" rather than "learning". Who makes Chinese so subtle, without such a big story, it seems that you can't even say what you want to say. There is no difference between reading and reading, and classics and pleasure do not have to be opposed to each other. I believe that in ancient times, those who "hung their heads" in order to get ahead did not get the edification of sentiment and spiritual enrichment from the four Books and five Classics and Zi Yun's poems. It is probably in modern times that the life world begins to be refined, modular and fragmented, and there is a growing separation between what people "learn" and what they read and read.

the books I usually read include not only "idle books" in the secular sense, such as novels, essays and memoirs, but also topics such as religion, history, sociology and so on. In the end, "idle" or "not idle" has to be decided by the reader's state of mind and purpose. Judging from the content alone, it is bound to make mistakes in judgment. No matter in terms of quantity or the depth of influence on me, so far, I think novels occupy the most important position in my reading. Those stories, scenes and characters have existed alive in my mind and memory, which, of course, cannot be summed up by the word "leisure".

recently, a friend asked me why I still have two children.She can find time to read, but she can't. I said, because if I don't read, I think it's no fun to live. In our era when economic benefits come first and cultural fast food is the main part of our spiritual life, such an answer sounds like a profound and stingy answer. But the answer couldn't be more true. Reading for me, especially reading fictional works, is not only to experience the various tastes of life, to enter the word world to live another kind of life, but to read itself is life. At this point, it is not accurate to say that reading is a "way of life", because the "way" is abstract, but when I enter the world of a book with a work in my hand, whether it is a fictional story or the truth of history. I spent real time and energy. To put it more seriously, whenever I am reading, I temporarily abandon my family, children and all the daily things that surround me. To books, I dedicate sections of my life, which are both precious and true.

in this way, the "cost" of reading is really high, so it's hard not to go back to my parents' question: what's the use of reading so many books, especially novels?

Wang gangsters have asked me the same question more than once. However, as a literary scholar and intellectual, his starting point is different from that of my parents. Wang gangsters believe that reading novels requires reading a person's behavior, sitting and lying down, raising his or her feet, which can change one's temperament and be beneficial to life. Every time he asks me this question, he is shocked by my ignorance of life and my indifference to human feelings. Although I don't think he is utilitarian, I feel that I can't actually answer his questions. On the other hand, I also felt angry, as if he had completely denied the meaning of my reading just because I didn't get anything from the book, and he had read much fewer novels than I did. So I asked myself, what on earth did I get from reading the novel?

frankly, if someone asks me about the story, I can't repeat most of the works I've read, especially the details. This includes not only the old ones, but also the books I read last month. But what does it matter? I can't engrave every turn of the character's fate in my head, which doesn't mean I haven't approached them, and they haven't touched me. For example, I read Jude the obscure when I was 19, and it is still regarded by me as my "book of life" to this day, but I can't tell what kind of tragedy Jude and his cousin Sue have experienced. However, I still vaguely remember Westminster Abbey in the book, a hillside under the haze, an ideal that will always be defeated, a small potato who is down and out, and a hero who struggles in a lot of difficulties. But always can not earn the physical and mental cage, only exists in the human heart and spirit of the hero. I reflect myself, or my ideal image, in the book, and the satisfaction is so great that I don't need to change anything at all.

and my relationship with books is not always so abstract. Looking back from the age of 19, I found that my view of love was also shaped by reading novels. Here I would like to mention the two works I read when I was in junior high school and high school-- the most sentimental age-- Zhang Henshui's "North Wild Goose Flying to the South" and Zhang ailing's "half-Life fate" (in fact, I first read "Eighteen Spring". But later, when I saw the rewritten "half-Life fate", I thought "half-Life fate" was better). The protagonists in these two novels, Li Xiaoqiu and Shen Shijun, correspond to the ideal opposite sex I identified as a teenager and adolescence: affectionate, sensitive, bookish, and less talkative. I have always longed for a seamless relationship with unconditional acceptance and a firm belief in each other, and in this respect, these two books gave me a lot of room for imagination when I was a teenager. Wang gangsters are not completely in line with my ideals, but it doesn't matter. The novel has already taught me that there may be a gap between reality and pursuit-through the daily life and ideals of fictional characters written by writers. What really happened in my life does not prevent me, who is now in my thirties, still secretly yearning for the world of Li Xiaoqiu and Shen Shijun.

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my love of reading also affects my career choice. Ever since I was a child, I thought I would be a writer. I hope I can write some works like my favorite authors, so that people will laugh, cry, be in a daze and sigh when they read them. Although I am not a writer to this day, I still have this idea, and I am very open about it. I have worked as a journalist, a teacher, etc., but only writing is considered by me to be a career, and everything else is a means of making a living. I have never made a living by writing fiction, and I may not make a living in the future. In my case, writing is just writing, which is quite pure. Still, all the work I've done has to do with my love of reading: when I started as a journalist, I was a graduate with a science degree and didn't take a news writing class, but my first story made headlines. I think this is a role that the books I have read have unexpectedly played in the depths of my mind. Later, when I graduated as a graduate student in the United States, I decided not to pursue a doctorate and go to work. One of the important reasons was that I wanted to be able to read freely. If I become a scholar, there is no such thing as "getting off work". I have to be in a state of "reading" research and thinking almost all the time. I am worried that that kind of life will reduce my chances of reading and writing. So I found a job in the university as a Chinese teacher, outside the work and winter and summer vacation, all at my disposal. During this period, I was dragged to teach several courses in Chinese literature, in which I talked about the works of many writers such as Lu Xun, Lao she, Xiao Hong, Zhang Xianliang and Chen Ruoxi.

when many people talk about their love of reading, they will talk about a lonely childhood and a sense of alienation from life, and so on. I don't want to reinforce these ethereal things, because it's not always pleasant to meet my own experience in a book. Sometimes when I read in other people's booksTo my own shadow, I will be frightened, but I am also afraid of getting too close to another myself. Maybe that's why I didn't finish reading Maugham's the shackles of Life. I hope that in the future I will finish reading it and then write the reading feeling that I have already drawn up the title, called "the young man who is distressed at the thought of it".

there are also people who like to say that reading can increase the understanding of life, but according to Wang gangster, it is useless to realize it, and it has to be feasible. By his standards, I didn't even understand it, and I was a rather failed scholar. But whether or not to fail, what he said is inconclusive, and whether or not to fail is not the yardstick of reading in my heart. What is going on outside my body and inside me occasionally collides with the words in the book with eye-catching sparks or entangled cracks, which is the time of harvest and the meaning of my reading.

having said so much, I failed to answer the question in the question, because I couldn't find a specific benefit that could be allocated to reading-- especially leisure books-- for this activity. For me, why on earth do I read books? It seems that it is just to make yourself fall in love with reading, then fall in love with writing, and then continue to read and write. This is the fate of a person cycling in the paper world, regardless of the way out.