Bacon said in "On the Pursuit of Knowledge": "Reading can be used as a pastime, as a decoration, or to increase one's talents." I think the three uses of reading he elaborated on are aptly summarized. Three meanings of reading.

Let’s take a look at it first for fun. This is the thought that people have when they start reading and become restless. Beginners have no desire for knowledge, and the meaning of reading is to kill time; and irritable people, because they cannot calm down and read, find everything boring, so they also use reading to kill time. As everyone knows, this kind of meaning of reading is just like what scholars say about "Tao, it can be Tao, but it is not Tao". It is very different from the essence of reading. There are many gaps. Therefore, entertainment is the most elementary and superficial meaning of reading.

Then go up the next step and look at the decoration. This purpose and meaning of reading is the mentality that we all have when reading. Put a copy of the "Four Books" at home and pretend to recite a few lines of "The Analects" elegantly, so that you can talk about it with others when talking loudly. This constitutes a further meaning of reading - as decoration when talking loudly, or in other words Create capital when talking and laughing.

The first two meanings of reading are only superficial meanings. Deep digging depends on increasing talents. Reading to increase talents does not mean blindly following the books, otherwise you will only become a paranoid nerd. Practice can improve knowledge, and the purpose of reading is to provide theoretical help for practice - to help the theory become more real in further derivation. Therefore, I think, one more thing should be added, do not trust books easily. Truth needs to be paved by predecessors. This paving can come from reading, but more importantly, it needs the arguments and reasoning of later generations.

So, practicing in theory and identifying truth and paradox in practice are the deep connotations of reading.

Just like Yu Qiuyu said about the meaning of walking: "But as you walk farther, this reason gradually fades away, and the previous section of the road becomes the reason for the next section of the road. Each section of the road can answer some questions, but it also Bring up some questions”.

The same goes for reading. If you read more, in order to answer new questions, you will read more books, demonstrate more knowledge, and practice the deeper meaning of reading...