The basic principles of book selection
In China, hundreds of thousands of new books are produced a year, and you can only read up to 100 books. Which one to read? Many people fall into choice anxiety.
But think about it if you're going to a cafeteria. There is a lot of food in the cafeteria, and your appetite is very limited, will you be anxious?
You won't! Because you're giving different weights to three parameters and rushing out with the plate.
Which three parameters? The first is that I love to eat; the second is expensive, usually reluctant to eat, now luxurious; the third is that I have heard of this thing but have not eaten it, I taste it.
Well, the same is true for choosing a book:
Choose a book that you like to read;
Luxury - choose books that are of no use to your salary increase and how to pick a boyfriend;
Questions that I don't usually think about at all.
Daily life is full of all kinds of chicken and dog pieces of small troubles. As Zhang Ailing said, "Life is a gorgeous robe, crawling with lice." Reading a book is to make you forget about these lice for a while.
Every book is like a broomstick, and you can ride on it and go far, far away. If the broom you choose is "Eighteen Tips for Making PPT" and "How to Open Your Mouth to Get Your Boss to Give You a Raise," how do you go far away?
So be sure to read books that are of no use to you, and it's best to talk about questions you've never thought about before. Treating reading from a non-utilitarian perspective is the most important thing.
When we say that a person is poor, we do not only mean that there are fewer substances at his disposal, but also that we refer to a state in which we are forced to live roughly and wear out our originally noble and exquisite spiritual world.
Specific recommendations for selecting books
Speaking of so many Qiong Yao, how should I choose books? I have two specific suggestions:
Visit the bookstore regularly, without a purpose. Pick books randomly on the shelves;
Open page 69 of the book. If you can read this page, just buy it. If you can't read it, you don't buy it. This 69-page book-picking technique was something I learned from McLuhan and it works.
Let me stress this again: no book is so important that you have to chew it down. Many people do not love to read, and when they say that they are afraid of reading, they have suffered this loss.
If you feel that reading a book that you don't like is a big sacrifice, then the harvest will be great. Then I will tell you that you will not gain anything other than an aversion and fear of reading.
In the age of the Internet, books were the least efficient in terms of access to information. So the purpose of reading is not to know something, but to go from question to answer. If you don't like this scenery, it's better to close your eyes and recuperate.
What about detours?
Speaking of which, you may still have such a question. That is, Teacher Gu Heng, you now let me choose books according to my own preferences, in case I like to pick "Wenzhou boss with the little sister-in-law to run away, 100 days of insider shock broadcast", I choose 10 books every month, all of which have little sister-in-law on page 69. How can we get from Hume to Kant from my sister-in-law?
I don't think you have to be confused at all. Because:
First, if you have such confusion, it means that you have the impulse to come out of your sister-in-law's house and go to Kant's house. As long as this impulse is strong enough, you will be able to get there sooner or later.
Second, people are good at winning. Get so many teachers, so many lessons. Which is more important and which is less important? There is no answer to this question.
The only judgment you can make is which one you prefer. Meet someone you like, like me. Haven't we both already picked up the head? The dawn is ahead! Every year I introduce 52 books, and for three years at most, I'm empty. I'm empty, you're pretty much the same as me, right? What's the hurry?
A good friend of mine said something particularly reasonable. He said: "The so-called process of growing up is to watch people who used to feel particularly cattle, one by one, become fools. ”
In fact, it is not that others have become stupid, but that you have become smarter and more learned. I sincerely hope that in your minds, I can become a fool as soon as possible.
Weak water three thousand only take a scoop. To know a little more is nothing more than to change a larger lifebuoy in the ocean of knowledge, so that you can have a longer contact with your ignorance.
Who can be an all-rounder? I don't know anything about the Qur'an, and I don't know anything about Buddhism or Mahayana. Am I mentally handicapped?
Therefore, it is most important to have fun from reading, but it does not matter what books to read.
Stay young and stay interested
I found that students who love to learn generally have a state of anxiety about their ignorance, but ignore the happiness in the process of "getting". Everyone is half a glass of water, you stare at the empty half above, I stare at the full half below.
The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Holmes famously said, "The goal of life is to get as much as you can from imperfections." "Compared to what a person can master in a lifetime, the total amount of knowledge is really too large.
Therefore, "how much knowledge I have when I am breathing" becomes a meaningless thing, and it is good to try my best in the process and feel happy.
It is precisely because there are too many books and too much knowledge. So, if you are a young classmate, I would like to say one more thing to you, that is, in the process of learning, you should keep the juvenile continuous state as long as possible.
What is juvenile persistence? It's a kid! The child is interested in everything, picks it up and plays with it twice, takes two bites, and throws it away.
For young people, maintaining a broad interest and being content to "taste" everything is a better strategy.
Don't be too quick to believe in something. Being too convinced of one theory, one idea, leads to tubular thinking that will automatically block out a lot of other theories and ideas.
Moreover, sticking to one point of view will always make people stupid. Russell said, "The wise man loses credulity, and the stupid man loses his stubbornness." "If making mistakes can't be avoided, then I suggest you make the mistakes of smart people."
Read a book a week
Finally, I sincerely recommend that you make it a habit to read one book a week.
Every time I walked into the bookstore and looked at the rows of books, thinking that I was in the same room with the best people in the world, ever alive, I was in awe.
Spiritual pleasure, some can be shared with others, such as a joke, told to others, the more others laugh harder you feel satisfied.
But there is also a spiritual pleasure that you cannot share with anyone. This is the understanding and affection between you and a person who is thousands of miles away, even long dead.
And this kind of understanding, this kind of affection, you can only experience it in reading.
Source: Luo Ji Thinking
Author: Gu Heng
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