Nowadays, why do we still persist in the reading habit? Let’s continue with the habit of the last week, there is a question we have been asking all the time, why do we still pursue reading or study in today’s world? It seems that the answer is obvious. Isn’t reading all about seeking knowledge?
In fact, it is not so sure. If you go back a few decades, this answer is correct, but today this answer is not so confident.
The reason is simple, there are too many ways to seek knowledge today. For example, we watch videos on TikTok, haven’t you learned something?
Conversely, does the act of reading seem to be useless, or is it not as useful as it used to be?
Actually not, if we think so, we underestimate the book today. In this article, I will provide you with an angle. Come and see if it makes sense.
The great director, Martin Scorsese said a wonderful thing. He said that movies are being systematically reduced to content on today’s Internet. What a strange thing to say. You smack the smell behind it. Isn’t the movie content? This big director doesn’t seem to be, what is content?
The content can be shortened, just like many movies are now compiled into short videos of 3 minutes. Then if you become a short video, you have to compare it with the previous one and the next one. The last one is a pet puppy, and the next may be a boy group boy. You fight with them, what kind of views, likes, and reposts. What advantage does the movie have?
From the director’s point of view, why did I spend so much money and energy to make a movie?
It’s very simple, I want to build a complete world, not as content to be compared by you. Shrunk back and forth by you. I construct a whole parallel world independent of my audience’s everyday life. This is the heart of a movie.
This is the meaning of the survival of the film species. Are books the same? Are books just content? No, do you think that when an author is writing a book, does he have any data, right? How to please readers, how to follow popular trends, is it too late for him to write a book for many years, right? So this seemingly backward creative feature gives the reader a rare advantage. Just like what I said just now, like a movie, it is an independent world carefully created.
Well, now that you have said that, you will understand what reading means. It’s not that we are cursed by the algorithm, guessed, and then pushed to us, and then we lie there and wait for the content to wash over our brains.
No, reading is an invitation we send to a strange world constructed by a stranger. Let’s talk about things that I am not familiar with and things that I am familiar with in our minds, and we may spark sparks. Even touched blood.
It doesn’t matter, there is a wound in my original world, and I will grow when it heals. This is the value of reading. What this value is essential, is essentially two words, and there is, take action.
When you take the initiative, you just think, when you come to a library or a bookstore, which book you open, even if you just look at the catalog, you haven’t finished reading it, that’s all. It is you who have sent a signal to the world, that is, we are interested in this topic. I am interested in a stranger giving me a strange message.
It’s just that after I judged, my interest is not that great, so I can let it go. But when the action happens, it’s not waiting for the algorithm to rub you on the ground, but we are actively rubbing the world.
I remember Yuval Noah Harari’s book “HOMO DEUS – A Brief History of the Future” that future humans are divided into two categories: the data calculated by other people’s algorithms, and the other that they live a particularly proactive life. He is an algorithm that treats others as data. In fact, the competition for future people is only whether you are an algorithm or a data. We take the initiative to read a book instead of waiting for an algorithm to recommend it. We become algorithms. This is the smallest granularity of action.
Make a little effort and be happy with yourself, because we took active action. I made the smallest unit of effort, so of course I am very satisfied with myself. In the world today, we still have to insist on the most important meaning of reading.