Adolf Hitler. My struggle (Mein Kampf) (№ 197765)

I know many who "read" infinitely much - book by book, letter by letter; and yet I will not call these people anything but "well-read." Of course, these people have a lot of "knowledge", but their brain is completely unable to properly absorb, register and classify the perceived material. They absolutely do not have the art to separate in the book the valuable from the unnecessary, the necessary to keep in mind, and it is superfluous, if possible, to simply not see and in any case not burden oneself with ballast. After all, reading is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. Reading aims to help a person gain knowledge in the direction that is determined by his abilities and his determination. Reading gives a person the tools that he needs for his profession, regardless of whether it is a simple struggle for existence or satisfaction of a higher purpose. But on the other hand, reading should help a person make up a general world outlook. In all cases, it is equally necessary that the content of what is read is not deposited in the brain in the order of the table of contents of the book. The task is not to burden your memory with a certain number of books. It is necessary to ensure that, within the framework of the general worldview, the mosaic of books finds an appropriate place in the mental luggage of a person and helps him strengthen and expand his worldview. Otherwise, only chaos results in the reader’s head. Mechanical reading is completely useless no matter what the unhappy reader swallowing books thinks about it. Such a reader sometimes considers himself to be “educated” in the most serious way, imagines that he has learned life well, that he has enriched himself with knowledge, and yet, in fact, as such “education” grows, he more and more moves away from his goal. In the end, he ends up either in a sanatorium or as a “politician” in parliament. He who works so hard on himself will never be able to use his chaotic “knowledge” for the purposes that arise before him at any given moment. His mental ballast is not in the line of life, but in the line of dead books. And although life will push him many times to take something really valuable from books, this unfortunate reader will only be able to refer to such and such a page read in the book, but he will not be able to apply it to life. At every critical moment, such sages sweat their faces in books of analogies and parallels and, of course, inevitably fall into the sky with a finger. If this were not so, then the political actions of our other learned rulers would be completely inexplicable. Then we would have left the only conclusion: instead of pathological inclinations, to ascertain the properties of simple scammers in them. The same person who knows how to read correctly, will be able to use any book, any newspaper, any brochure he reads in such a way as to take from it everything really valuable, everything really having not only transient value. He will be able to dismember and assimilate the acquired new material in such a way that it will help him clarify or replenish what he already knew before, get new material that helps to justify the correctness of his views. If life suddenly poses new questions in front of such a person, his memory will instantly tell him from what he reads what is needed for a given situation. From the material that has accumulated in his brain for decades, he will be able to quickly mobilize what is needed to understand the new problem posed and to correctly answer it. Only such a reading makes sense and purpose.