Nowadays, online reading has become an important part of people’s life. Human reading behavior has also changed accordingly: the eyes quickly and conveniently “run away” on the Internet, gradually replacing the traditional reading that is like eating slowly in the past. The new medium has made the divinity of many arts condensed on the “paper surface” in the past, constantly subverted and crushed by the feeling of “interface”.
However, I feel that the “interface” has replaced the “paper” reading, and what may be lost is the depth of time and the thickness of history. When people get a large area of explosive information, they also have a certain unspeakable sense of weightlessness.
The reason why I say this is because in my personal experience, reading is actually a kind of mental exercise with weight.
In the early 1970s, when I was a teenager, I secretly read a book, which was “John Christophe” by the French writer Romain Rolland. I remember the inscription on the title page is this sentence: “The real light is by no means never without darkness, but just never being submerged by darkness. A real hero is never never without humble sentiments, but never succumbed to humble sentiments That’s all.” This sentence touched me deeply and gave me the urge to do something for the world. For the first time, I realized the weight of reading, which gave me the stability and strength of my body and mind.
A relative of mine read Das Kapital leaning on a haystack in the field under the same background. I asked him why he read this book at the time, and he only said that he liked it.
Thinking about it today, such reading is really a kind of spontaneity without utilitarianism. Because of its spontaneity, there is no pre-set reading expectation, and the unexpected reading gains are extremely precious and unforgettable. What is unforgettable is also a kind of weight that sinks into the bottom of my heart. This weight hits you, which is sweet and hearty.
The weight of reading sometimes lies in its “heaviness” and sometimes in its “lightness”. This “lightness” is not frivolity, but a kind of uselessness, which is the liberation of reading mood.
Today, our reading has undergone many changes. Books that sell well in the market are often practical books that are closer to life: health care, beauty, business warfare, stocks, English… The sea of books has become “vast”. The reading of what you need seems to no longer carry the burden of the spirit, but go straight to the topic, and what you want is immediate results.
The utility of reading is obvious. However, what I want to emphasize is “useless” reading, just like the power of culture, which is more of a slow, dense, and permanent penetration. Although it is “useless”, everything has its traces, and our heavy body will gain lightness and cleanliness of mind due to “useless” reading at certain moments. Such reading is not necessary for survival or livelihood, but it allows us to feel the existence of others, see the beauty, warmth and value of life, and its inner cultural content has not been greatly discounted by the superficial “uselessness”. Its “uselessness” is itself a greater effect. Isn’t this a higher level of reading? This kind of naturally existing reading state may reflect the spiritual value of life better than deliberately forced reading or deliberately indifferent reading.
