Learn to Love to Read

学会爱读书

(Specific recommendations for books, blogs, and more are in “Naval’s Recommended Reading” section.)

(关于书籍、博客等的具体推荐请参见“纳瓦尔推荐读物”部分。)

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] 对阅读的真正热爱，一旦培养起来，就是一种超强的力量。我们生活在亚历山大时代，在这个时代，每一本书和每一段写下的知识都离我们只有一指之遥。学习的手段是丰富的—学习的欲望是稀缺的。

Reading was my first love. [4]

阅读是我的初恋。

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 Digest s, 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.

我记得我祖父母在印度的房子。我会是一个躺在地板上的小孩子，阅读我祖父所有的读者文摘，这就是他要读的全部内容。当然，现在有各种各样的信息—任何人都可以随时阅读任何东西。当时，它的限制要有限得多。我会读漫画书，故事书，任何我能弄到的书。

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.

我想我一直都喜欢读书，因为我实际上是一个反社会的内向的人。我从小就迷失在文字和思想的世界里。我想部分原因是因为我年轻的时候，没有人强迫我读某些东西，这是一种幸福的环境。

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] 我认为在家长和老师中有一种倾向，他们会说，“哦，你应该读这个，但不要读那个。”我读了很多(按照今天的标准)会被认为是精神垃圾食品的书。

Read what you love until you love to read.

读你喜欢的书，直到你爱读为止。

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.

你几乎不得不读你正在读的东西，因为你对它很着迷。你不需要任何其他理由。这里没有要完成的任务。阅读只是因为你喜欢它。

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.

这些天，我发现自己重读的次数和读书一样多(甚至更多)。@illacertus的一条推文说，“我不想读所有的东西。我只想一遍又一遍地读100本好书。“我认为这个想法有很大的道理。这实际上更多的是为你识别伟大的书籍，因为不同的书对不同的人说话。然后，你才能真正吸收这些东西。

Reading a book isn’t a race—the better the book, the more slowly it should be absorbed.

阅读一本书不是一场竞赛—书越好，它被吸收的速度就越慢。

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.

我不知道你怎么样，但我的注意力很差。我略读。我快速阅读。我跳来跳去。我不能告诉你书中的具体段落或语录。在某些深层次上，你吸收它们，它们就会成为你心灵织锦上的线。他们在那里有点纠结。

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] 我相信你一定有过这样的感觉，当你拿起一本书开始阅读时，你会说，“这很有趣。这是相当不错的。“你会越来越有似曾相识的感觉。然后这本书读到一半，你就会意识到，“我以前读过这本书。”那太好了。这意味着你已经准备好重读了。

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.

我其实不怎么看书。我捡了很多书，但只读了几本，这些书构成了我知识的基础。

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.

事实是，与人们的想法相比，我实际上读得并不多。我可能一天看一到两个小时的书。这使我跻身前0.00001%的行列。我认为，光是这一点就可以解释我生活中取得的任何物质成功和我可能拥有的任何智力。真正的人每天不会看一个小时的书。我认为，真正的人每天阅读一分钟或更少。让它成为一种实际的习惯是最重要的。

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]

你读什么几乎无关紧要。最终，你会读到足够多的东西(你的兴趣会引导你去那里)，这将极大地改善你的生活。就像对你来说最好的锻炼是你每天都足够兴奋的锻炼一样，我想说对于书籍、博客、推特或任何东西-任何有想法、信息和学习的东西-最值得阅读的是那些你总是对阅读感到兴奋的书。

“As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.” “只要我手里还拿着一本书，我就不会觉得自己在浪费时间。”

—Charlie Munger

—查理·芒格(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]

每个人的大脑工作方式都不同。有些人喜欢做笔记。事实上，我的笔记是推特。我读啊读。如果我有一些基本的“啊哈”的洞察力或概念，Twitter强迫我把它提炼成几个字符。然后我试着把它作为格言发布出去。然后，我被随机的人攻击，他们指出了各种明显的例外情况，并猛烈抨击我。然后我想，“我为什么要再做一次呢？”

Pointing out obvious exceptions implies either the target isn’t smart or you aren’t.

指出明显的例外意味着要么目标不聪明，要么你不聪明。

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? 当你第一次拿起一本书时，你是在浏览有趣的东西吗？你是怎么读这本书的？你会随便翻到一页就开始阅读吗？你的流程是什么？ 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.

我会从头开始，但我会动作快。如果不有趣，我就开始往前翻，略读，或者快速阅读。如果它不能在第一章中以一种有意义的、积极的方式吸引我的注意力，我要么放弃这本书，要么跳过几章。

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.

当有无限多的书可供阅读时，我不相信延迟满足。有这么多好书。

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.

完成的图书数量是一个虚荣心的指标。随着你知道的越多，你留下的未完成的书就越多。关注具有预测力的新概念。

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.

一般来说，我会略读一下。我会快进的。我会试着找一个能引起我注意的零件。大多数书都有一点要说明。(显然，这是非虚构的。我不是在说小说。)他们有一点要说明，他们会提出，然后他们会给你一个接一个的例子，然后他们用它来解释世界上的一切。一旦我感觉到了要领，我就会觉得很舒服地把书放下。有很多这样的，我称之为伪科学畅销书…人们会说，“哦，你读过这本书吗？”我总是说可以，但事实是我可能读了其中的两章。我抓住要点了。

If they wrote it to make money, don’t read it.

如果他们是为了赚钱而写的，那就不要看。

What practices do you follow to internalize/organize information from reading books? 你遵循哪些做法来内化/组织阅读书籍中的信息？ Explain what you learned to someone else. Teaching forces learning.

向别人解释你学到的东西。教书育人，学以致用。

It’s not about “educated” vs. “uneducated.” It’s about “likes to read” and “doesn’t like to read.”

这不是“受过教育”还是“没有受过教育”的问题。它是关于“喜欢阅读”和“不喜欢阅读”。

What can I do for the next sixty days to become a clearer, more independent thinker?

在接下来的60天里，我能做些什么来成为一个更清晰、更独立的思考者？

Read the greats in math, science, and philosophy. Ignore your contemporaries and news. Avoid tribal identification. Put truth above social approval. [11]

阅读数学、科学和哲学方面的名著。忽略你的同龄人和新闻。避免部落认同。把真相放在社会认可之上。

Study logic and math, because once you’ve mastered them, you won’t fear any book.

学习逻辑和数学，因为一旦你掌握了它们，你就不会害怕任何一本书。

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.

图书馆里没有一本书能吓到你。无论是数学、物理、电气工程、社会学还是经济学书籍。你应该可以把书架上的任何一本书拿下来读。其中一些对你来说太难了。没关系—不管怎样，还是要读一读。然后回去再读一遍，再读一遍。

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.

当你在读一本书时感到困惑，这种困惑就像你在健身房锻炼时的疼痛一样。但你在锻炼的是心理肌肉，而不是身体肌肉。学习如何学习和阅读书籍。

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.

说“只读”的问题是外面有太多垃圾了。有多少人，就有多少种不同的作者。他们中的许多人将会写很多垃圾。

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.

在我的生活中，有一些我认为非常博学的人并不是很聪明。原因是，即使他们非常博览群书，他们也会以错误的顺序阅读错误的东西。他们开始阅读一系列错误的或微弱真实的东西，这些东西构成了他们世界观的基础公理。然后，当新事物到来时，他们会根据自己已经建立的基础来判断新想法。你的基础很重要。

Because most people are intimidated by math and can’t independently critique it, they overvalue opinions backed with math/pseudoscience.

因为大多数人都被数学吓倒，不能独立批评它，所以他们高估了有数学/伪科学支持的观点。

When it comes to reading, make sure your foundation is very, very high quality.

当谈到阅读时，要确保你的基础质量非常非常高。

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.

拥有高质量基础的最好方法(你可能不会喜欢这个答案)，但诀窍是坚持科学，坚持基础。一般说来，你能读到的东西很少，人们不会不同意。很少有人不同意2+2=4，对吗？这是一门严肃的学问。数学是一个坚实的基础。

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.

同样，硬科学也是坚实的基础。微观经济学是一个坚实的基础。当你开始在这些坚实的基础之外徘徊的那一刻，你就有麻烦了，因为现在你不知道什么是真的，什么是假的。我会尽我所能专注于拥有坚实的基础。

It’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.

真正精通算术和几何要比深谙高等数学要好。我会整天读“微观经济学”—“微观经济学入门”。

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.

另一种方法是阅读原著和经典。如果你对进化论感兴趣，请阅读查尔斯·达尔文。不要从理查德·道金斯开始(尽管我认为他很棒)。以后再读他，先读达尔文。

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.

如果你想学习宏观经济学，先读亚当·斯密(Adam Smith)、冯·米塞斯(Von Mises)或哈耶克(Hayek)。先从经济学的原始哲学家说起。如果你对共产主义或社会主义思想感兴趣(我个人并非如此)，那就从阅读卡尔·马克思开始吧。不要阅读当前的解释，有人告诉你事情应该如何做和如何运行。

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] 如果你以原著为基础，那么你就有了足够的世界观和理解力，你就不会害怕任何一本书。那你就可以自己学了。如果你是一台永恒不变的学习机器，你就永远不会有赚钱的选择。你总是可以看到社会上正在发生什么，价值是什么，需求在哪里，你可以学会跟上步伐。“[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.

要想清楚，就要了解基本知识。如果你在记忆高级概念，却不能根据需要重新派生，那你就输了。

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: 我们现在处在Twitter和Facebook的时代。我们得到的是一口大小的、简明扼要的智慧，这真的很难吸收。书籍作为现代人是很难读的，因为我们受过训练。我们有两个相互矛盾的培训项目： 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.

其一是我们的注意力持续时间已经过了最低点，因为我们总是被如此多的信息所冲击。我们想跳过、总结并切入主题。

Twitter has made me a worse reader but a much better writer.

推特让我成为一个更差的读者，但却是一个好得多的作家。

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.

另一方面，我们也从小就被教导要读完你的书。书是神圣的—当你去学校时，你被分配去读一本书，你必须读完这本书。随着时间的推移，我们忘记了如何读书。我认识的每个人都被某本书困住了。

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.

我肯定你现在被什么东西卡住了—已经是第332页了，你不能再往前走了，但你知道你应该读完这本书。那你是做什么的？你有一段时间不看书了。

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.

对我来说，放弃阅读是一场悲剧。我在书本上长大，然后我转到博客，然后我转到Twitter和Facebook，我意识到我实际上并没有学到任何东西。我一整天都在吃一点多巴胺零食。我得到了我的140个字符的多巴胺小爆发。我会发推特，然后看看是谁转发了我的推文。这是一件有趣而美妙的事情，但这是我在玩的一个游戏。

I realized I had to go back to reading books. [6] 我意识到我必须回去读书了。

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.

我知道这是一个非常困难的问题，因为我的大脑现在已经被训练成把时间花在Facebook、Twitter和其他一些小东西上。

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.

我想出了一个办法，我开始把书当作一次性的博客帖子，或者一口大小的推文或帖子。我觉得没有义务读完任何一本书。现在，当有人向我提到一本书时，我就会买下它。在任何时候，我都在读十到二十本书。我正在翻阅它们。

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]

如果这本书变得有点枯燥，我就跳过。有时，我开始读中间的一本书，因为有一段话吸引了我的眼球。我就从那里继续，我觉得没有任何义务要读完这本书。突然之间，书又回到了我的阅读图书馆。那太好了，因为书中有古老的智慧。

When solving problems: the older the problem, the older the solution.

解决问题时：问题越陈旧，解决方案就越陈旧。

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.

如果你试图学习如何驾驶汽车或驾驶飞机，你应该读一些现代写的东西，因为这个问题是在现代产生的，而这个问题的解决方案在现代是很好的。

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.

如果你在谈论一个老问题，比如如何保持身体健康，如何保持平静和安宁，什么样的价值体系是好的，你是如何养家糊口的，以及诸如此类的事情，那么旧的解决方案可能会更好。

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] 任何存留了两千年的书都经过了很多人的筛选。一般原则更有可能是正确的。我想重新开始读这类书。

You know that song you can’t get out of your head? All thoughts work that way. Careful what you read.

你还记得那首你忘不掉的歌吗？所有的想法都是这样运作的。当心你读的东西。

A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love.

平静的心灵，健康的身体，充满爱的房子。

These things cannot be bought.

这些东西是买不到的。

They must be earned.

它们必须是自己挣来的。