Talking about the purpose of reading and art Yoon Soo-min

Why read?

There are several answers and explanations to this question from ancient times to the present. The most representative is the bitter pursuit of what "Golden House", "Thousand Bells Millet" and "Yan Ruyu". "There is a golden house in the book, there is a jade in the book, and there are thousands of bells in the book", these beautiful visions make some readers not hesitate to "hang their heads" and "cone thorns" to desperately pursue this goal.

However, I believe that reading is an adventure in the spiritual kingdom, a grand journey of the soul, and a source of continuous growth of the inner spirit. Books change the world, and reading enriches life. Therefore, the purpose of reading is to get an elegance and flavor, to increase learning and skill. It is not a "golden house", "Yan Ruyu", "a thousand bells". Therefore, reading is naturally not a kind of chore, but should be a kind of enjoyment of life, a very elegant and beautiful spiritual feast.

Reading has always been regarded as a kind of elegant thing in the life of a cultivated person, a special intoxicating aesthetic enjoyment. However, there are many people, especially those who have never loved to read, that they do not experience. Those who do not love to read have not yet developed the habit of reading. They have little interest in reading, and are often obsessed with playing poker, chess, going to bars, dancing halls, and even doing nothing. These people are imprisoned by the world in front of them, and their lives are mechanical, dull, and even boring and meaningless. Because they are confined to that narrow circle, they are in contact with playmates, eating companions, dance partners, and so on, and they see only what is happening around them, and they don't know anything else. In this way, their minds are confined to what they eat, drink and have fun without thinking about anything else.

If you want to solve this problem, the best way is to pick up books, take books as friends, take books as companions, and cultivate and find yourself in the process of reading.

When you pick up a book, you will immediately enter a different, new world and see a new world. If you're reading a good book, you'll immediately be exposed to one of the most talkative people in the world and guide you forward. Take you to a different country or a different era, or vent some personal grudge against you, or discuss some knowledge that you never knew, or some life problem.

Perhaps, you are reading an ancient book, and an ancient writer has brought you into contact with a long-lost person. When you read it, you will imagine what the writer who lived in the distant past looked like, what kind of person he was. Mencius and Sima Qian both expressed the same concept on this issue. A person can live in a different world for two hours in a day, completely forgetting the actual environment in front of him, such a change in the environment, from the psychological impact, is as comfortable and pleasant as travel, which is really very envious of those who do not like to read.

People who love to read, once they read books, will be attracted to books and can't help themselves at all. It will lead him into a realm of ideological reflection. Although the book is about real things, or things that the reader has witnessed with his own eyes, or even experienced them. However, there are even many differences between it and the things that the reader reads in the book. Because the things described in the books often become a scene, and the reader becomes a cold-eyed person. Therefore, the best reading should be the kind of reading that can lead us into that contemplative state of mind. And it shouldn't be the kind of reading that only reports the beginning and the end of things. So, I think that reading a newspaper and reading a book are two very different things. Spending a lot of time reading newspapers is not reading, it does not have the effect of reading. For the reading of newspapers is mostly a report that merely notes the events that occurred or passed through, a kind of news report, without much artistic appeal, without any value or meaning that makes people meditate.

From this point of view, reading books will bring people an unusual elegance and flavor. It will make you travel through time and space effortlessly, let you go to different historical periods, different eras, and dialogue with the ancients. It will also allow you to cross national borders, travel around the world, and let you talk to interested foreign scholars. You can also let you soar through the clouds and ride the fog, go to heaven and earth, pick up the stars and the moon, and travel through the universe.

Therefore, reading books will make people feel fresh in their thinking, broad in vision, happy in mood, wide in knowledge, knowledgeable day by day, and their talents will continue to improve. These changes that have happened to people who read books have made us gradually realize what reading is for. I understood that the purpose of reading is not for the "Golden House", "Thousand Bells", "Yan Ruyu", but for a kind of elegance and flavor. Only those who read books with this purpose will really read books and really get the greatest benefits from books.

Huang Gu, a friend and poet of Su Dongpo in the Song Dynasty, once said: "If you don't read for three days, you will feel that the language is tasteless and your face is abominable." Here, he explains that the purpose of reading is to cultivate the elegance of the individual and enhance the flavor of conversation.

The elegance of appearance mentioned here does not, of course, refer to the beauty of the body, but to the beauty exhibited by the inner temperament of the individual. Flavor, on the other hand, refers to the true taste obtained from the book. If one regards reading as a task, simply to "improve the mind", that is, to improve the level of knowledge and ability, then the interest of reading is lost. This kind of person not only does not understand the art of reading, but also does not know the purpose of reading. Therefore, it will feel particularly bitter, particularly tired, and particularly boring and tasteless to read. Therefore, he will use the pain of "head overhanging beam" and "cone thorn strand" to force himself to complete the task of reading. So where is there fun, pleasure, enjoyment? Reading books this way makes no difference between reading a document and a report before making a presentation. This is not reading, but to complete the work that you need to do, obviously there is no fun.

The elegance brought by reading is actually the extraordinary temperament that people have. This kind of temperament is the inner release and display. It is unpretentious, unadorned, and is very real and naturally exposed. This elegance comes from knowledge, from the edification of ideas in the book. Therefore, the elegant beauty brought about by reading is not the beauty dressed up with fat powder, but the beauty created purely by the power of thought. That kind of beauty is only possessed by those who regard reading as a kind of enjoyment and can truly derive spiritual pleasure from the book.

The flavor produced by reading refers to the flavor of conversation. Whether the conversation has flavor depends entirely on whether the reading method is appropriate and whether there is the art of reading. As long as the true taste is truly obtained from reading, and the reader and the author's mind can communicate and be integrated, then the true taste of the book will be reflected and evaporated in the conversation. If the meaning of the language is profound, interesting, precise, fascinating, not flattering, not beautiful, then the article written must also be intriguing and difficult to read.

Of course, the flavor of reading also refers to the fun of reading. Everyone has their own hobbies, just like eating, each has its own tastes, each has its own choices. The same is true of reading. One person eats it as a tonic, and the other person eats it as poison. Therefore, it should be suitable for each person, and it should not be the same. If a person is completely uninterested in what he reads, then he will not be able to read well in any case. It can only be a waste of time and energy. From this, it shows that a problem is that reading should be selective. Everyone must choose the book they are interested in to read, and they will consciously mobilize the initiative and enthusiasm of reading. You will not take reading as a task, and you will not feel bitter and tired. It is that the more you read, the more you love to read, and the more you read, the more attractive you become.

Some people read books, always have to draw up some required reading lists, or ask experts and teachers to circle themselves a must-read list, and then according to Tu Suoji, the time limit is limited. This kind of reading style is not unavoidable for some people who specialize in research. For free readers, there is no need. I think that there is no book in the world that everyone must read, and there is no need to prescribe a book that must be read. A book that has to be read only at a certain time and place in a certain state of mind. The books you should read are not read by me. Books that can be read at this time are not read at that time. It is true that there are books that must be read, but they must not be read at this moment, and the insights must not be read. The degree of thought development varies and is not readable.

If you want to read well, you must also look for the writers you love. If a person discovers and finds his favorite writer, it is the most important thing in the development of his knowledge. There are indeed some people in the world whose hearts are connected. One must find among the writers of ancient and modern China and foreign countries who are the writers he loves the most and whose thoughts and temperaments are similar. Only in this way can reading be of the greatest benefit.

For example, Sima Qian, a great historian and writer of the Han Dynasty, was deeply infected and influenced when he read the works of Confucius. He traveled thousands of miles to Qufu, Shandong Province, to visit confucius's former residence and feel the legacy of Confucius's temperament.

Although there are many scholars who live in different historical eras, hundreds of years apart, their methods and emotions are so similar. When one reads their words in a book, it is as if one sees one's own portrait. Because their hearts are connected. Therefore, when you find your beloved writer and read the book, the writer's heart will inspire your heart; the writer's emotions will contaminate your emotions; the writer's temperament will affect your temperament; the writer's sentiment will cultivate your sentiments; the writer's joys and sorrows will affect your joys and sorrows.

Practice has proved that if a person can find his favorite writer when he reads a book, reading a book will be beneficial and can read the true taste of the book. A person finds his beloved writer without the need for others to introduce and guide him, but by his own intuition. Because his work is just in line with the reader's heart, it can activate the reader's emotions. The style, taste, philosophy, method of thought, and the art of his language are completely suitable for the reader's taste and penetrate the reader's heart. In this way, the reader will find all the works of this writer, read them with great enthusiasm, appreciate their taste, and feel the mystery of them. It's a kind of communication of hearts; it's a kind of heart-to-heart imprint; it's a tacit understanding of thought. This kind of communication, mutual influence, and tacit understanding enables the reader to absorb the essence of the book, digest it effortlessly, and sublimate it into his own thoughts and knowledge. The writer attracts the reader with the magic of his work, and the reader is happy to be attracted to him. Over time, the reader will be subtly influenced by the writer, really immersed in the arms of the literary lover, and get spiritual food from it. Thus nourishing the body and mind and constantly improving.

Of course, one cannot just fall in love with one writer. Every writer's work can be poured with love, trying to read, to learn, to study, to accept the influence of his knowledge and the nutrition of his thoughts. Only in this way can knowledge be richer, learning will be more profound, thinking will be deeper, spirit will be more lofty, and temperament will be more elegant.

From this point of view, the key to reading consciousness comes from the fun of reading.

Reading with great interest is the greatest enjoyment and pleasure of life. It is not a kind of ordeal, nor is it a kind of pain, and it does not need the bitter torture of "head overhanging beam" and "cone thorn strand", and can't help but revel in elegant reading.

When reading is conscious, it will not be limited by time, place and environment. It will be natural everywhere, no matter what the situation, will be happy to read. It's like a cow running into a vegetable garden and eating non-stop. Therefore, there is no right time and place to read. As long as you have a reading mood, you can read anywhere and at any time. When you taste the joy of reading, you will be self-conscious, you will take the initiative, and you will not be able to release the paper.

However, there is a kind of person who is not, reading always talks about conditions and is poor. Some sit at their desks, not obsessed with reading and learning, but pretending to be pretentious, so they make things mysterious. Some people don't say that the room is cold, or that the bench is hard. Either the lights are dark or the conditions are poor. Others say that the book is too esoteric to read. What else is the weather hot, mosquitoes, human voices, the environment is chaotic. What else is busy at work, no time and so on. All have become the reasons and reasons for not reading. As the poem goes:

"Spring is not a day to read,

Best sleep in the summer heat;

Wait until autumn comes and winter comes,

It is better to wait for the coming year. ”

In short, according to this person's logic, all seasons of the year are not a good time for him to study. Tomorrow after tomorrow, tomorrow to tomorrow. But I don't know how many tomorrows are just around the corner in a person's life? In this regard, those who always like to talk about conditions when reading books probably have not seriously calculated.

(Revised on the evening of April 23, 2022)

About author:Yin Xiumin, a native of Guangrao, Shandong. Retired civil servant. Originally the main focus of talent use management theory research, for the Chinese talent research association member. After retirement, I learn to write essays, essays, miscellaneous feelings, etc. He has published eleven monographs and many papers. More than four million words. He has won many provincial and municipal awards. Title of Deputy Editor.

One point number Boshan District Writers Association