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I have been in the habit of reading for many years. Of course, this is nothing to boast about. Reading is just one of many personal habits, such as listening to music in rainy days, taking a walk in the evening, drinking two cups in the evening, and so on. Habits are just habits, and there are not many values worth promoting.

reading here refers to reading casual books, that is, books that have no real interest in work and life. I read well, but I don't seem to lose much if I don't read books. People often wonder whether reading is useful or not, which refers to this kind of books.

According to Mao Mu, the habit of reading such idle books should be regarded as an entertainment activity first. My reading habit was formed in middle school. At that time, the entertainment was far less abundant than it is now, there was no social network, and there was no need to follow the drama at twice the speed. Therefore, reading under the covers at night has become a rare entertainment, and it has gradually become a habit.

Later, I suddenly felt a certain desire to know the world. So reading has changed from entertainment to a way to understand the world, others and yourself. At that time, I was always in the library, reading everything I saw, and I was a little hungry. Later, of course, this momentum faded, but the habit of killing time and knowing the world through reading was established. I think many people's reading experiences are like this.

however, this reading habit suddenly stopped. For a year or two, I don't know why, but it's hard to settle down and read a book anyway. I picked up a book and turned over a few pages, so I didn't want to read it. Bookstores are still browsing, and books are bought, but I don't want to read them. It's really a headache.

this situation lasted for quite a long time. It was not until I read Mao Mu's essays about reading and saw his experience about reading that I suddenly realized that I couldn't read the book, not because of other external reasons, but because I was disappointed with reading.

Second,

The reasons for being disappointed in something are generally similar, that is, having too many unrealistic expectations about it.

Mao Mu, a sly English writer with a hint of sneer at his mouth, mentioned his reading experience, which was a time when he was eager to read, reading one book after another, in order to find out what the world was all about. He read literary plays, scientific works and a lot of philosophical works, but he found that his doubts about the world had not been eliminated and his questions had not been satisfactorily answered, so he was also very disappointed.

For example, no matter how you read those scientific works, you will find that they can only barely explain the laws of the world and cannot provide a completely correct answer for the universe we live in. Moreover, science is changing with each passing day, and there will always be new theories and discoveries to overthrow the previous ideas.

another example is philosophy. Philosophy studies the origin of the world, what people are and how people should spend their lives. However, Mao Mu found that philosophers' words can hardly be used as a guide to life behavior, because philosophers' understanding of the world and people is limited by the times and themselves, and a philosopher's judgment of the value of life is often based on his own character and position.

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For example, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

As we all know, Schopenhauer holds a very pessimistic attitude towards life, lives in isolation, and thinks that life is constant suffering. If you want to get any life wisdom from him, he will suggest that you "had better not be born".

Nietzsche once followed Schopenhauer when he was young, but he soon found that Schopenhauer's "ostrich" outlook on life was not suitable for him. Nietzsche inherited a lot of views on the world and the suffering of life from Schopenhauer, but he advocated a completely different life path, a way to surpass himself and reality. He wanted to "overcome the times on himself" and said something like "what can't kill me makes me stronger".

so, who should we listen to? This is just the concept of two people with similar ages and origins, and their understanding of life can be so different.

It turns out that no one can give you a perfect and sure answer.

Therefore, even Mao Mu was disappointed in the process of reading. At this time, he said a meaningful sentence, "No book is complete".

When I read this sentence, I felt suddenly enlightened. The thing that blocked my heart for a long time, the emotion that made me unable to study well, finally surfaced. To put it simply, I hope to get too much in books.

once I understand that "no book is complete", I can start reading smoothly soon. This is not nonsense. This is actually about the mentality of reading. Everything is wrong and it is difficult to go smoothly.

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If you demand too much from a book, you will easily start to find fault with all kinds of things: the word is not used well, I can't agree with this sentence, the author is too wordy, and some opinions are out of date, so what's the use of reading this book ...

It is this awareness of seeking all the answers in every book that prevents me from reading a book smoothly. It is this kind of purposeful reading that damages the pleasure of reading. "The reason why adults are unhappy is because they feel that everything must have a purpose."

No book is complete. It won't give you exact answers to all your puzzles-maybe nothing will change after reading it. Everything is the same. When I accepted this, my reading mentality changed dramatically. I began to ignore those things that I was not satisfied with, and it was enough to look for those things that were a little valuable and a little shiny in a book. I don't want any more.

There is a threshold for reading. Teenagers feel fresh when reading anything, so they are easily satisfied. But the older you are, the more books you have read, and the harder it is to find something that can impress you. At this time, there is such a book, even if it touches and inspires you a little, it is very rare.

I think this reading mentality is also feasible in many things. For example, watching movies, if a comedy movie can really make me happy for a while, there is no need to care whether it has any social significance or profound truth. For example, if you make friends with people, you can also pay less attention to their quirks and find interesting places in them.

after all, no book is complete, because no one is perfect. Accepting this fact is the mentality of reading and the way to live in this imperfect world.