Learn to Love to Read
Learn to Love to Read
The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that is scarce. [3]
Reading was my first love. [4]
I remember my grandparents’ house in India. I’d be a little kid on the floor going through all of my grandfather’s Reader’s Digests, which is all he had to read. Now, of course, there’s a smorgasbord of information out there—anybody can read anything all the time. Back then, it was much more limited. I would read comic books, storybooks, whatever I could get my hands on.
I think I always loved to read because I’m actually an antisocial introvert. I was lost in the world of words and ideas from an early age. I think some of it comes from the happy circumstance that when I was young, nobody forced me to read certain things.
I think there’s a tendency among parents and teachers to say, “Oh, you should read this, but don’t read that.” I read a lot which (by today’s standards) would be considered mental junk food. [4]
Read what you love until you love to read.
You almost have to read the stuff you’re reading, because you’re into it. You don’t need any other reason. There’s no mission here to accomplish. Just read because you enjoy it.
These days, I find myself rereading as much (or more) as I do reading. A tweet from @illacertus said, “I don’t want to read everything. I just want to read the 100 great books over and over again.” I think there’s a lot to that idea. It’s really more about identifying the great books for you because different books speak to different people. Then, you can really absorb those.
Reading a book isn’t a race—the better the book, the more slowly it should be absorbed.
I don’t know about you, but I have very poor attention. I skim. I speed read. I jump around. I could not tell you specific passages or quotes from books. At some deep level, you absorb them, and they become threads in the tapestry of your psyche. They kind of weave in there.
I’m sure you’ve had this feeling where you pick up a book and start reading it, and you’re like, “This is pretty interesting. This is pretty good.” You’re getting this increasing sense of deja vu. Then halfway through the book, you realize, “I’ve read this book before.” That’s perfectly fine. It means you were ready to reread it. [4]
I don’t actually read a lot of books. I pick up a lot of books and only get through a few which form the foundation of my knowledge.
The reality is, I don’t actually read much compared to what people think. I probably read one to two hours a day. That puts me in the top .00001 percent. I think that alone accounts for any material success I’ve had in my life and any intelligence I might have. Real people don’t read an hour a day. Real people, I think, read a minute a day or less. Making it an actual habit is the most important thing.
It almost doesn’t matter what you read. Eventually, you will read enough things (and your interests will lead you there) that it will dramatically improve your life. Just like the best workout for you is one you’re excited enough to do every day, I would say for books, blogs, tweets, or whatever—anything with ideas and information and learning—the best ones to read are the ones you’re excited about reading all the time. [4]
“As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.” —Charlie Munger
Everyone’s brain works differently. Some people love to take notes. Actually, my notetaking is Twitter. I read and read and read. If I have some fundamental “ah-ha” insight or concept, Twitter forces me to distill it into a few characters. Then I try and put it out there as an aphorism. Then I get attacked by random people who point out all kinds of obvious exceptions and jump down my throat. Then I think, “Why did I do this again?” [4]
Pointing out obvious exceptions implies either the target isn’t smart or you aren’t.
When you first pick up a book, are you skimming for something interesting? How do you go about reading it? Do you just flip to a random page and start reading? What’s your process?
I’ll start at the beginning, but I’ll move fast. If it’s not interesting, I’ll just start flipping ahead, skimming, or speed reading. If it doesn’t grab my attention within the first chapter in a meaningful, positive way, I’ll either drop the book or skip ahead a few chapters.
I don’t believe in delayed gratification when there are an infinite number of books out there to read. There are so many great books.
The number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you leave more books unfinished. Focus on new concepts with predictive power.
Generally, I’ll skim. I’ll fast forward. I’ll try and find a part to catch my attention. Most books have one point to make. (Obviously, this is nonfiction. I’m not talking about fiction.) They have one point to make, they make it, and then they give you example after example after example after example, and they apply it to explain everything in the world. Once I feel like I’ve gotten the gist, I feel very comfortable putting the book down. There’s a lot of these, what I would call pseudoscience bestsellers…People are like, “Oh, did you read this book?” I always say yes, but the reality is I read maybe two chapters of it. I got the gist.
If they wrote it to make money, don’t read it.
What practices do you follow to internalize/organize information from reading books?
Explain what you learned to someone else. Teaching forces learning. It’s not about “educated” vs. “uneducated.”
It’s about “likes to read” and “doesn’t like to read.”
What can I do for the next sixty days to become a clearer, more independent thinker?
Read the greats in math, science, and philosophy. Ignore your contemporaries and news. Avoid tribal identification. Put truth above social approval. [11]
Study logic and math, because once you’ve mastered them, you won’t fear any book.
No book in the library should scare you. Whether it’s a math, physics, electrical engineering, sociology, or economics book. You should be able to take any book down off the shelf and read it. A number of them are going to be too difficult for you. That’s okay—read them anyway. Then go back and reread them and reread them.
When you’re reading a book and you’re confused, that confusion is similar to the pain you get in the gym when you’re working out. But you’re building mental muscles instead of physical muscles. Learn how to learn and read the books.
The problem with saying “just read” is there is so much junk out there. There are as many different kinds of authors as there are people. Many of them are going to write lots of junk.
I have people in my life I consider to be very well-read who aren’t very smart. The reason is because even though they’re very well-read, they read the wrong things in the wrong order. They started out reading a set of false or just weakly true things, and those formed the axioms of the foundation for their worldview. Then, when new things come, they judge the new idea based on a foundation they already built. Your foundation is critical.
Because most people are intimidated by math and can’t independently critique it, they overvalue opinions backed with math/pseudoscience.
When it comes to reading, make sure your foundation is very, very high quality.
The best way to have a high-quality foundation (you may not love this answer), but the trick is to stick to science and to stick to the basics. Generally, there are only a few things you can read people don’t disagree with. Very few people disagree 2+2=4, right? That is serious knowledge. Mathematics is a solid foundation.
Similarly, the hard sciences are a solid foundation. Microeconomics is a solid foundation. The moment you start wandering outside of these solid foundations you’re in trouble because now you don’t know what’s true and what’s false. I would focus as much as I could on having solid foundations. I
t’s better to be really great at arithmetic and geometry than to be deep into advanced mathematics. I would read microeconomics all day long—Microeconomics 101.
Another way to do this is to read originals and read classics. If you’re interested in evolution, read Charles Darwin. Don’t begin with Richard Dawkins (even though I think he’s great). Read him later; read Darwin first.
If you want to learn macroeconomics, first read Adam Smith, read von Mises, or read Hayek. Start with the original philosophers of the economy. If you’re into communist or socialist ideas (which I’m personally not), start by reading Karl Marx. Don’t read the current interpretation someone is feeding you about how things should be done and run.
If you start with the originals as your foundations, then you have enough of a worldview and understanding that you won’t fear any book. Then you can just learn. If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. You can always see what’s coming up in society, what the value is, where the demand is, and you can learn to come up to speed. [74]
To think clearly, understand the basics. If you’re memorizing advanced concepts without being able to re-derive them as needed, you’re lost.
We’re now in a day and age of Twitter and Facebook. We’re getting bite-sized, pithy wisdom, which is really hard to absorb. Books are very difficult to read as a modern person because we’ve been trained. We have two contradictory pieces of training:
One is our attention span has gone through the floor because we’re hit with so much information all the time. We want to skip, summarize, and cut to the chase.
Twitter has made me a worse reader but a much better writer.
On the other hand, we’re also taught from a young age to finish your books. Books are sacred—when you go to school and you’re assigned to read a book, you have to finish the book. Over time, we forget how to read books. Everyone I know is stuck on some book.
I’m sure you’re stuck on something right now—it’s page 332, you can’t go any further, but you know you should finish the book. So what do you do? You give up reading books for a while.
For me, giving up reading was a tragedy. I grew up on books, then I switched to blogs, then I switched to Twitter and Facebook, and I realized I wasn’t actually learning anything. I was just taking little dopamine snacks all day long. I was getting my little 140-character burst of dopamine. I would Tweet, then look to see who retweeted my Tweet. It’s a fun and wonderful thing, but it’s a game I was playing.
I realized I had to go back to reading books. [6]
I knew it was a very hard problem because my brain had now been trained to spend time on Facebook, Twitter, and these other bite-sized pieces.
I came up with this hack where I started treating books as throwaway blog posts or bite-sized tweets or posts. I felt no obligation to finish any book. Now, when someone mentions a book to me, I buy it. At any given time, I’m reading somewhere between ten and twenty books. I’m flipping through them.
If the book is getting a little boring, I’ll skip ahead. Sometimes, I start reading a book in the middle because some paragraph caught my eye. I’ll just continue from there, and I feel no obligation whatsoever to finish the book. All of a sudden, books are back into my reading library. That’s great, because there is ancient wisdom in books. [6]
When solving problems: the older the problem, the older the solution.
If you’re trying to learn how to drive a car or fly a plane, you should read something written in the modern age because this problem was created in the modern age and the solution is great in the modern age.
If you’re talking about an old problem like how to keep your body healthy, how to stay calm and peaceful, what kinds of value systems are good, how you raise a family, and those kinds of things, the older solutions are probably better.
Any book that survived for two thousand years has been filtered through many people. The general principles are more likely to be correct. I wanted to get back into reading these sorts of books. [6]
You know that song you can’t get out of your head? All thoughts work that way. Careful what you read.
A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love.
These things cannot be bought.
They must be earned.
(Specific recommendations for books, blogs, and more are on “Naval’s Recommended Reading” page)
学会爱上阅读
培养对阅读本身的真正热爱是一种超能力。我们生活在一个亚历山大图书馆的时代，每一本书，每一段曾经被记录下来的知识，都在指尖触手可及。学习的手段是丰富的——但缺乏的是学习的渴望。[3]
阅读是我的初恋。[4]
我记得我在印度祖父母的家中。那时我还是个小孩子，坐在地上翻看我祖父的《读者文摘》——那是他唯一的阅读材料。当然，如今我们身处信息的盛宴之中——任何人随时随地都能读到任何东西。而在那时候，选择十分有限。我会读漫画、故事书，任何我能找到的东西。
我想我一直爱读书，因为我实际上是个内向的反社会者。从小我就沉迷于文字和思想的世界。我觉得其中一部分原因是，我很幸运，在我小时候，没有人强迫我读某些特定的东西。
我觉得父母和老师中有一种倾向：“哦，你应该读这个，但不要读那个。”我读了很多书，这些书按今天的标准来看，可能会被认为是“精神垃圾食品”。[4]
读你喜欢的，直到你爱上阅读。
你必须读那些你想读的东西，因为你对此感兴趣。你不需要其他任何理由。这没有什么任务要完成。只是因为喜欢而阅读。
这些天，我发现自己重读的书和阅读的新书一样多，甚至更多。@illacertus 在推特上写道：“我不想读所有的书。我只想把那一百本伟大的书一遍又一遍地读。”我觉得这种想法很有道理。这更多地是关于找到适合你的伟大书籍，因为不同的书对不同的人有不同的共鸣。然后你才能真正吸收它们。
读一本好书不是一场竞赛——书越好，越应该慢慢地消化。
我不知道你怎么样，但我的注意力非常差。我常常略读，快速阅读，跳来跳去。我无法向你引用书中的具体段落或句子。但在某种深层次上，你吸收了它们，它们变成了你精神世界的一部分，成为你心灵织锦中的一条条线。
我相信你也有这种感觉：拿起一本书开始阅读，觉得“这相当有趣，挺不错的。”然后渐渐地有一种似曾相识的感觉，读到一半时才意识到：“我以前读过这本书。”这完全没问题，这意味着你已经准备好重读它了。[4]
我其实并不读很多书。我拿起很多书，但真正读完的只有少数，这些书构成了我知识的基础。
事实上，与人们想象的相比，我其实读得并不多。我大概每天读一到两个小时。这让我位于最上层的 0.00001%。我认为，这就足够解释我在生活中取得的任何物质上的成功以及我可能拥有的任何智慧。普通人并不会每天读一个小时的书。普通人，可能每天只读一分钟甚至更少。把阅读变成一种真正的习惯才是最重要的。
你读什么几乎不重要。最终，你会读到足够多的东西（你的兴趣会引导你），这些东西会显著改善你的生活。就像最适合你的锻炼是你每天都兴奋去做的那种锻炼，我会说，对于书籍、博客、推文，或者其他任何包含思想和信息的东西，最好的阅读内容就是那些你一直对阅读充满激情的东西。[4]
“只要手里有书，我就不觉得自己在浪费时间。”——查理·芒格
每个人的大脑运作方式不同。有些人喜欢做笔记。对我来说，我的笔记其实就是推特。我读了很多，如果有某个基础性的“啊哈”时刻或概念，推特就会迫使我把它提炼成几句话。然后我尝试把它以格言的形式发出去，然后会有各种随机的人跳出来，指出各种明显的例外并质疑我。然后我想：“我为什么要这样做呢？”[4]
指出明显的例外，意味着目标不够聪明或者你自己不够聪明。
当你第一次拿起一本书时，你是为了找一些有趣的东西而翻阅吗？你是怎么阅读的？你会随便翻到某一页开始阅读吗？你的过程是怎样的？
我通常从头开始，但我会很快地读下去。如果不感兴趣，我会翻到后面，略读，或者快速阅读。如果第一章没有在某种有意义的、积极的方式上抓住我的注意，我会放下这本书，或者跳过几章。
我不相信在有无限书籍可读的情况下还要推迟满足感。有这么多好书。
完成的书的数量是虚荣的指标。随着你知道得越多，你会有更多书读不完。专注于那些具有预测能力的新概念。
通常，我会略读、快进，尝试找到某个吸引我注意的部分。大多数书只有一个要点（显然，这是指非虚构类。我不是在说小说）。他们有一个要点，讲清楚后，就会通过一遍又一遍的例子来解释这个世界上的一切。一旦我觉得已经抓住了要点，我就会很放心地放下这本书。很多这种书，我称之为伪科学畅销书……人们会问：“哦，你读过这本书吗？”我总是说“是的”，但实际上我可能只读了两章，抓住了要点。
如果他们写书是为了赚钱，那就不要读。
你有哪些实践方法来内化或组织从书中获得的信息？
向别人解释你学到的东西。教学促进学习。这不是“受过教育”和“没受过教育”的问题。
这是“喜欢阅读”和“不喜欢阅读”的问题。
接下来六十天我能做些什么来成为一个更清晰、更独立的思考者？
阅读数学、科学和哲学方面的伟大著作。忽略你的同代人和新闻。避免部落认同感。将真理置于社会认同之上。[11]
学习逻辑和数学，因为一旦你掌握了它们，你就不会再害怕任何书。
图书馆里的书不应该让你感到害怕。无论是数学、物理、电气工程、社会学还是经济学书籍。你应该可以拿下任何一本书并阅读。许多书会对你来说过于困难。这没关系——还是去读。然后回来重读，再重读。
当你在读一本书时感到困惑，这种困惑就类似于在健身房锻炼时的肌肉酸痛。但你在锻炼的是你的精神肌肉。学会如何学习，学会读书。
说“只需读书”有个问题，那就是有太多的垃圾存在。作者有多少种人，书就有多少种。很多人会写出大量的垃圾。
我生活中有些人，我认为他们非常博学，但他们却不聪明。原因在于，尽管他们读了很多书，但他们读错了东西，也读错了顺序。他们一开始读了一些错误的，或只是弱真理的东西，这些东西成了他们世界观的公理和基础。然后，当新事物出现时，他们基于已经建立的基础来判断这个新想法。你的基础至关重要。
因为大多数人害怕数学，无法独立评判它，所以他们过高估计了用数学/伪科学支持的观点。
当阅读时，请确保你的基础非常非常高质量。
构建高质量基础的最佳方法（你可能不喜欢这个答案）就是坚持科学和基础知识。通常，只有少数几件事是没有争议的。几乎没人不同意“2+2=4”，对吧？这就是严肃的知识。数学是一个坚实的基础。
同样，硬科学也是一个坚实的基础。微观经济学是一个坚实的基础。一旦你开始超出这些坚实的基础，你就会陷入麻烦，因为你不知道什么是真，什么是假。我会尽量专注于拥有坚实的基础。
比起深入研究高等数学，算术和几何学的基础打得扎实要好得多。我会整天看微观经济学——微观经济学101。
另一个方法是阅读原创著作和经典。如果你对进化感兴趣，那就读查尔斯·达尔文。不要一开始就读理查德·道金斯（尽管我认为他很棒）。之后再读他；先读达尔文。
如果你想了解宏观经济学，首先读亚当·斯密，读冯·米塞斯，或者读哈耶克。先从经济学的原始哲学家开始。如果你对共产主义或社会主义思想感兴趣（我个人不是），那就先读卡尔·马克思。不要去读当代人向你灌输的关于如何做和管理的解释。
如果你从这些原始经典开始作为你的基础，那么你就有足够的世界观和理解力，你就不会害怕任何书。然后你就可以学习。如果你是一个永远在学习的机器，你就永远不会缺少赚钱的方法。你总是可以看到社会中即将到来的事物、价值所在、需求所在，并且你可以学习以跟上步伐。[74]
要清晰地思考，理解基础。如果你在没有能力重新推导的情况下记忆高级概念，那你已经迷失了。
现在是推特和脸书的时代。我们获取的是一口一口的、简短的智慧，而这非常难以吸收。作为一个现代人，读书变得非常困难，因为我们已经被训练成这样。我们有两个相互矛盾的训练：
一是我们的注意力下降到极低，因为我们一直在被各种信息轰炸。我们想要跳过、总结、直奔主题。
推特让我成了一个更差的读者，但却成了一个更好的写作者。
另一方面，从小我们就被教导要完成手里的书。书是神圣的——当你在学校被指定读一本书时，你就必须读完它。久而久之，我们忘记了如何读书。我认识的每个人都卡在某本书上。
我确信你现在也被某本书卡住了——可能是第332页，读不下去了，但你知道你应该把这本书读完。那么你怎么办？你放弃了读书一段时间。
对我来说，放弃读书是一种悲剧。我是在书本中长大的，然后我转向博客，再然后是推特和脸书，最后我意识到自己其实什么也没有学到。我只是在一整天中获取一点点多巴胺的小零食。我得到我的小小的140个字符的多巴胺爆发。我发推，然后看看谁转发了我的推文。这是一个有趣而美妙的事情，但它是一个我在玩的游戏。
后来我意识到，我必须回到读书中去。[6]
我知道这是一个非常难的问题，因为我的大脑现在已经被训练去花时间在脸书、推特和这些零碎的信息片段上。
于是我想出了一个办法，我开始把书当成一次性博客文章或零碎的推文或帖子。我觉得自己没有任何义务要读完一本书。现在，当有人向我提到一本书时，我就买下来。在任何时候，我都在读大约十到二十本书。我在翻阅它们。
如果这本书有点无聊，我就会跳到后面去。有时，我从一本书的中间开始读，因为某个段落吸引了我的眼球。我就从那里继续读下去，完全没有任何要读完这本书的义务感。突然之间，书又回到了我的阅读列表中。这是件好事，因为书中有古老的智慧。[6]
解决问题时：问题越古老，解决方案也越古老。
如果你想学开车或飞行，你应该读一些现代的东西，因为这是现代的问题，解决方案也适用于现代。
如果你在讨论一个古老的问题，比如如何保持健康，如何保持冷静和平，哪种价值体系更好，如何养家等等，古老的解决方案可能更好。
任何一部能够存在两千年的书都经历了众多人的筛选。一般原则更有可能是正确的。我想要重新回到这种书籍的阅读中去。[6]
你知道那首让你无法摆脱的歌吗？所有的想法都以这种方式运作。小心你读的东西。
平静的心态，健康的身体，充满爱的家庭。
这些东西无法用金钱购买。
它们必须通过努力获得。
（关于书籍、博客等的具体推荐，请参见“Naval 推荐阅读”页面。）