Free Like a Tree: A Letter to Children
By Hu Yong
Published by the People's Literature Publishing House
This book is a letter written by Hu Yong, a professor and communication scholar at Peking University, to the fetus and daughter of Longfeng - Weiwei and the end.
It is not only a warm and vivid "multi-child" family education sample that records the growth of children, but also a philosophical meditation on the education of love, personality and life. 12 years, 24 letters, both to children - hope to guide them in the current era of rapid change, in the unprecedented digital world, more fully aware of themselves, more comfortable to face the virtual world without getting lost, more rich and three-dimensional experience of colorful life.
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Reading is an adventure, not a tour
Dear Weiwei and End,
……
At the age of 11, you have also read a lot of books, and Dad thinks that I can now share some of my reading experience with you.
There are many visible goodness in reading, but not in the usual way people think of it—for example, reading for knowledge, or for exams, promotions, or adding to your resume.
Reading is really good, Dad thinks, first of all, it helps you see your own state and the surrounding environment. Because man is alive in a concrete way, and in a specific environmental condition. We must have a clear understanding of ourselves and the environment around us.
Dad judges a person by whether he or she can clearly describe himself or herself and whether he or she can form a complete description of the living environment. If this can be done, it is to live "aware."
Life is short, and wasting your time is wrong. So a lot of people are busy. However, if a person loses himself in the process of being busy and does not know what he is busy for, then even if he is busy, he is still wasting his time. This is the absence of "awareness." People without "awareness" are like the walking dead, suspended in their own lives.
The cognition of ourselves and our surroundings, on the one hand, depends on the accumulation of life experience, on the other hand, we can also learn widely from books. For example, good literature can expose us to a wide variety of emotions and events that often take us years or even decades to experience in real life, or even can never witness directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator – a magical machine that lets you experience an infinite number of possibilities.
As Virginia Woolf said, "Reading is not to acquire knowledge, not to earn a living, but to expand communication beyond our time and region." Dad believes that this kind of communication is the most convenient way to broaden your understanding, especially for those of you who are not deeply involved in the world.
So, how to explain that some people love to read, but are very immature in life? In the final analysis, the relationship between life experience and books is this: people transition from the life of action to the life of contemplation, and then from the life of contemplation to the life of action, and so on, stirring each other. Going through such a dynamic process of transition and return is the real fun place in life, in order to live a balanced, complete and rich life.
Therefore, the meaning of reading may not be to see how many books we have read, but to see what state the books we have read have kept us in... Look at what the survival of the streets, the clouds, and others means to us, and see if reading makes us feel more like we're alive.
This is the first reading experience that Dad wants to share: reading is not to acquire knowledge, but mainly to solve his own life situation.
The core of reading thus becomes "an encounter with the self". In other words, the ultimate goal of reading is not to acquire information, but to absorb and reflect on it, and in the process, to develop a better self.
The second reading experience is to learn to quickly and accurately form your own knowledge judgment on any problem through reading.
You have entered the era of knowledge and explosion. The pursuit of knowledge is not as useful as before, because knowledge, like milk, has a short shelf life; Knowledge is like a flood, mud and sand, and it is urgent to be clarified. Everyone must develop the ability not to be an expert in some kind of knowledge, but to know where to get the required knowledge in a very short time; And, in the process, form your own knowledge judgment.
If you don't have this ability, then it will be like Dad used to use the analogy: you turn your mind into someone else's racetrack.
The third reading experience is to form associations through structured and systematic reading. The saplings of knowledge thus begin to spread and grow into forests.
The problem with many people reading books is: the first is that there is no structure, that is, there is no connection between books. This leads directly to the second problem, even if you encounter a good book, you can't grasp its essence, because the book leaves soon after entering the brain, and there is not even a single wave of water. Therefore, reading without a knowledge system is of little use.
Man is a reed that can think, and if he truly releases his thoughts, they will spread out endlessly. There are no isolated thoughts at all, never have, some are just webs of ideas. That's why Isaac Newton famously said, "If I look further, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants." ”
Only by experiencing the above three points will you feel that reading is a pleasant thing, rather than a homework or other burden that you have to do. The latter two are still difficult for you at present, and I believe that you will have a deeper experience in the process of studying in high school and even college in the future.
(Source: Visual China)
In China, there has been a popular thing in the past few years called "pay for knowledge". Some people sell secondary processing of the accelerated method of reading, read a hundred books a year, and reading is like stamp collecting. This completely deviates from the essence of reading, that is, reading was originally an adventure, and now life has been made into a trip to see flowers.
The American poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, "No battleship will lead us to a distant continent like a book." "In the past, people read books because books could take them anywhere; Now, people don't read because they mistakenly think they've been to a lot of places.
When Dad tells you both that reading is an adventure, it's not a common cliché, but it can be proven in brain science.
For example, when you read about Harry Potter jumping underwater and trying to pick up the Sword of Gryffindor, the part of your brain involved in motor control actually jumps with him. When you read a silky piece of clothing brushing against your skin, or a leaf being blown by the wind, the part of your brain involved in sensory perception is activated and feels like you really hear the rustling sound. At the level of the brain's neural responses, we do experience the same thing as the fictional characters—we don't just understand a book, we live in it.
In your reading experience, you have all encountered situations like this: Oh, this character is so interesting, it turns out that I am not the only weird person who thinks this way; How the author said so well, I have never thought about it from this point of view before!
Through text, you are transmitted to someone else. You see the world with their eyes. You understand their pain and joy. Only by putting ourselves in the shoes of others can we be aware of the often contradictory emotions that each person has, while also making us aware of the complexity of our own hearts.
The novelist Proust described it as "the fruitful miracle of communication in solitude," describing an intimate emotional dimension of the reading experience: being aware of the opinions and feelings of others without leaving an inch of our private world. This is Dickinson's metaphor for books like battleships, taking you away but not moving, both in your own habitat and in other lives and lands. This is one of the deepest, under-publicized contributions of deep reading.
So, reading requires patience and solitude, but this patience and solitude is for connecting with others, especially those who are completely different from you.
In addition, the real adventure of reading always begins with humility, understanding that there are so many unknowns in this world.
Yes, it is entirely possible for a person to read for the wrong reasons, such as as the philosopher Russell said: "There are two motives for reading a book." One is, you like it. The other is that you can brag about it. "Reading with a second motivation will only inspire your arrogance.
Those who are truly well-read instead become more intellectually humble. They are increasingly aware of their ignorance and limitations, which makes them more willing to learn from others. Many of the smartest people in business, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk, insist that the best way to get smarter is to read.
But everyone who reads seriously has a distress: what if there are too many good books and can't read them? There is a good way to think about this question, which was proposed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the best-selling book Black Swan. Taleb drew inspiration from the library of Italian writer Umberto Eco:
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to one of the few scholars who are erudite, profound and not boring. He owned a large private library (30,000 volumes), from which guests could be divided into two categories. One group of people reacted: "Wow! Professor Eco, how spectacular your library is! How many of them have you read? "There is an absolute minority of people who know that the private library is not a self-inflate ornament, but a tool for research. Books read are far less valuable than unread books. ...... In fact, the more you know, the more unread books take up the shelves. Let's call this collection of unread books anti-library.
Did Eco really read all these books? Of course not, but showing off to guests is not his purpose in surrounding himself with a lot of knowledge. By constantly reminding himself of everything he doesn't know, Eco's library keeps him intellectually hungry and perpetually curious. This is the utility of "anti-library". It's a powerful reminder of human limitations—so many things you don't know, half-know, or one day realize you're wrong.
All the books you haven't read are indeed a sign of your ignorance. But if you know how ignorant you are, you'll be ahead of the vast majority of people. After all, Socrates has long taught us that all wisdom begins with the admission of one's own ignorance.
So, kids, read! Reading is a gift for all because it strengthens our imagination and makes the impossible possible. When we discover in books that there are so many possibilities in the world, we feel even more alive.
A good book, between its front and back cover, gives us temporary shelter from unanxious solitude.
A reading frees us from ourselves, leapfrog into others, and in doing so, learn what it means to be another person.
And an adventure, living daily with a reminder of one's own limitations, can propel oneself toward intellectual humility and the enrichment of the personal world.
>> author profile
Hu Yong is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University, and a well-known communication scholar. He is the author of "Digital Displacement", "Crowd Noise", "Network is King" and so on. Self-proclaimed "teacher", reading, writing, translating. In addition to being a scholar, he is also a father of three children.
Author: Hu Yong
Editor: Kim Jiuchao