The Greatest Benefit of Reading Is Spiritual Freedom
When I was a child in the countryside, the consensus among villagers was that reading can change fate—that reading can turn us from country folk into city folk, from peasants into educated people, so that we no longer have to face the yellow earth and bend our backs to scrape a living from the soil, as our ancestors did, no longer dependent on the weather.
When I grew up, many people pumped us up, telling us that reading is for the rejuvenation of China—if we were English, the purpose of reading would be to rejuvenate Britain; if we were Japanese, it would be to rejuvenate the Yamato people. In short, reading is for accomplishing some great cause.
As a result, the world has become endlessly disputed. Many people harbor this or that ideal, which in reality finally turns them into masters of scrambling for power and profit, and in that scramble they leave themselves bruised and battered. After a lifetime of weary hearts, they sigh: "Man's sorrows begin the moment he learns to read!"
Confucius put it even more grandly, saying that the highest goal of the scholar is to "govern the state and bring peace to the world." We have more than two thousand years of feudal history; in the feudal era, the tradition that "a good scholar takes office" took shape in China. In the past, there were certainly scholars like Zhang Zai, who would "set the heart for heaven and earth, establish the destiny for the people, continue the lost learning for the sages of old," and scholars like Fan Zhongyan, who would "worry before the world worries, and enjoy after the world enjoys" (though Fan Zhongyan, it is said, after taking office was a little different from the lofty tune he sang; he bought up large estates, first laying the foundation for the prosperity of the Fan clan). But for more scholars, the purpose of reading might be described more truthfully in plain language—promotion and wealth!
The above attitudes are all typical utilitarianism. Whether the goal is good or bad, they treat reading as a very utilitarian thing. The so-called utilitarian means having a strong purpose. Nowadays, when we send children to school to read, we are also very utilitarian: the goal is to get them into a good university, and later to have a good job with a higher income. To be honest, reading with such utilitarian intentions makes people weary of reading for the rest of their lives.
From ancient times to the present, only a few people have treated reading as something done to achieve spiritual freedom. For such people, reading is simply a pleasure; academic degrees and social status have nothing to do with reading. A person who reads without utilitarian motives, only because he loves reading, gains pleasure in reading, frees his spirit, his field of vision becomes ever broader, his mind ever more open, and he sees life and the world through ever more clearly.
When I was in university, I had no interest in the courses at all and was completely unwilling to continue, but my parents and teachers told me that in future I would need the university diploma as a stepping stone to enter society; with this certificate I could have a good meal. This phrase especially gave me a headache. I had loved reading since childhood, and I nearly had my entire interest in reading destroyed by this kind of degree education. Luckily I left university in my freshman year and chose to read aimlessly in the library on my own.
From the age of nineteen I rented a room in Wuta Temple Village opposite the National Library, often spending whole days in the National Library, doing odd jobs to make a living. Wuta Temple Village also had people like me renting there, who also frequented the National Library; their purpose in haunting the library was to "scholarship," to become respected scholars. In Wuta Temple there was the "Unirule Institute of Economics," with its sign by the road; it was founded there by Mr. Mao Yushi, dedicated to research. Their rent must have been expensive, and the place looked very high-end; I could only look up at it. I did not know what scholarship was, nor did I have any interest in becoming a master in any field; so I was aimless, only picking books I liked to read.
Those days I lived as happily as an immortal. I could not understand why education had become so mechanical; no school ever allowed students to read according to their own interests as I did. We were required to study according to the exam syllabus, we read to cope with exams; I had endured this for many years and was no longer willing to.
My father always wanted to drive me back to university, but I refused to submit. My teacher was kind-hearted; for someone like me, who had hardly taken any exams at school, he actually managed to get me a university certificate of withdrawal, proving I had attended. He hoped it would help me a little, but so far, except for using it once when applying for a visa abroad some years ago—the visa officer didn't even bother to look at it—it has been kept on the shelf ever since.
In those years I also wrote. At first, the articles I wrote were posted on the Yitahutu and Tianya BBS—both of which were wildly popular back then. The articles I wrote were as freewheeling and disordered as the books I read; compared with other serious authors, what I wrote was pure nonsense. But I just loved reading and writing so aimlessly, everything governed by just four words: where the interest leads.
I have watched authors who mixed with me on the forums become influential figures in society one after another, while I myself have remained obscure. One reader has read my articles for twenty years; once she told me I was the strangest writer she had ever met. Other authors may not write better than I, yet they have long since gained both fame and fortune; I had many opportunities to become a "social celebrity" like them, or even more famous, but I have always written as if merely playing with the world. In my twenties I used many pen names; each time a pen name gained some fame I would cancel it and start over with a new one, and when it gained a little fame I would cancel it again.
I am not cynical; I simply have not yet decided what the purpose of my reading and writing is. It is still so now. I enjoy reading and writing, and I feel that is enough. I dislike being bound by any rules and conventions; even now, I still read wherever my interest leads, reading whatever I want.
In my student days, my photo wearing a big red flower was often placed in the school display window for the whole school to see, which made me very uncomfortable. I seem to have been born tired of such things; I felt that such behavior was no different from a monkey dressing up in a hat. It brought me many unnecessary burdens and worries, kept me from reading with undivided attention, and turned reading into a burden rather than a joy.
I have seen similar accounts in the biographies of Einstein, Feynman and Mendel; they too were driven mad by exam-oriented education. I am not saying, cheekily, that I am the same kind of person as they; I know myself well enough to know I will never achieve great feats like theirs in this life.
I only want to say that, in every era, our education armed with utilitarianism makes one's scalp tingle. When reading is bound up with utilitarianism, vanity and such things, what has reading become? How is it different from doing a job one dislikes, or living with a spouse one dislikes? If one reads like this year after year, can it truly be without harm to body and mind?
Not everyone in this world likes reading; those who really dislike it can simply learn something else and do what they enjoy. But people who like reading should also be allowed to read simply for the pleasure of reading. Making a living from knowledge should only be a byproduct of reading; at least one kind of person need not care about this byproduct, because they have no desire for an affluent life.
The greatest tragedy of life is that we spend most of our lives living for utilitarian ends—reading for utility, working for utility, doing everything for utility.
Precisely for this reason, many people are spiritually exhausted. Books were originally the best thing for enriching the heart, but for too many people books have become a mountain crushing their spiritual world—because they really do not want to read those books that give them such a headache.
I know quite a few people who have read themselves into trouble, who are gloomy because of reading. And there are others—we all know the type—who have read themselves into fools; books have brainwashed them, turning them into bigots who, apart from the one system they themselves endorse, cannot accept anything new.
In my view, as a person reads, he should become more and more open-minded, his understanding of the world deeper and deeper, his own cognition more and more transparent, and the smile on his face brighter and brighter. Because books have promoted the growth of their minds, freed their spirits from all manner of shackles, and set their souls free.
Nowadays I always tell my son to read only for his own pleasure, not for any elite school or medal, and not to link reading with future work or career. With anything, if we like it, we do it; we should not set some goal that must be reached, or we will make ourselves miserable.
Because of my work, I have delved deeply into the inner worlds of too many people and seen how they have been devastated. And because of my interest in the life sciences, I have learned much about the deeper layers of life: are we not just living organisms? Does the body need anything but a few simple elements? How we eat, drink and dress, is it not all just living? What is the point of setting up so many flashy, empty things? Human beings are a foolish animal, tangling themselves in one trap after another and feeling smug about it—truly beyond cure.