你好呀，我是良哥。又一篇好文来啦，请阁下细细品尝。我们可以智力看作一种解决问题的能力，我们越是聪明，就越能解决更多的问题。关于高效提升智力的最好方法，很多人往往会建议你在一年内尽可能读更多的书，但是我想来告诉你的是，读困难的读书效果更好。困难的书虽然比较费时，但通过阅读更多、更难的书籍，你会逐步举起更重的重量，你会自然而然知道你接下来应该读什么，甚至成为新的思维工具的创造者。The best way to 10x your intelligence is to go on a difficult books reading regimen. That’s where you read ten or less books a year, and each one should be harder than the last one. And this is probably the opposite of a lot of what you see and hear on YouTube, where the game is often to read as many books in a year as you can. Something which I think will be very inefficient if you’re trying to boost your intelligence and mental strength. Let me show you how and why the difficult book regimen works better.高效提升智力的最好方法是进行一项困难的阅读计划，计划的内容是你一年读10本或更少的书，但每一本都要比上一本难度更大。这可能与你在油管上看到和听到的很多内容不同，他们往往会建议你在一年内尽可能读更多的书，但我认为如果你想提高你的智力和脑力，这样的做法其实非常低效。让我来告诉你，为什么困难的读书训练计划效果更好。So, what is intelligence? Let’s define it as the ability to solve our own problems. The more intelligent we are, the more of our own problems we can solve. Ok, but how do we improve our intelligence? One of the main ways we improve our intelligence, our ability to solve problems, is by creating, obtaining, and using tools. And there are at least two types of tools we use: physical tools and mental tools. An example of a physical tool is a hammer. If you need to apply force to something, the hammer is handy for that. Physical tools are easy to understand, but I think less people talk about and understand the importance of mental tools, which is what this video is about.智力是什么？你可以把智力看作一种解决问题的能力。我们越是聪明，就越能解决更多的问题。那么我们该如何提高自己的智力呢？提高智力，提高我们解决问题的能力的主要方法之一就是通过创造、获取和使用工具。而我们使用的工具至少可以分为这样两类：物理工具和思维工具。物理工具就是锤子一类的东西，如果你需要对某物施力，那么用锤子就很方便。物理工具很容易理解，但我感觉少有人谈论和了解思维工具的重要性，而这正是我们这个视频要介绍的内容。So, what is a mental tool? An example of a mental tool is the word forgiveness. Think about the word forgiveness and how much power this word gives you within yourself and within your relationships. When you forgive yourself, you make peace with your past self and your previous mistakes, and you give yourself permission to be a better person tomorrow than you were yesterday. Forgiveness frees you from the burdens of the past. When you forgive another, you make it possible to repair a relationship for the better and move forward as a team. It’s hard to imagine a world without the concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness, like all words, is really a kind of technology or mental tool. It’s kind of like a glue that allows us to repair a broken relationship, whether that relationship is with others or ourselves. It has changed our lives immensely for the better and improved our ability to cooperate.那么思维工具究竟是什么呢？思维工具的一个例子就是宽恕一词。想一想宽恕这个词，以及宽恕这个词在你与自己以及与他人的关系中给予了你多少力量。当你宽恕自己的时候，你就能够与过去的自己和以前的错误和解，你给自己机会明天成为一个比昨天更好的人。宽恕能让你从过去的枷锁中解脱出来。当你宽恕他人，你使得你们之间有了一个修补关系的机会，并互相扶持前进。很难想象一个不存在宽恕这一概念的世界。宽恕和其他的词一样，是一种技能，或思维工具，它就像一种胶水，让我们能够修复一段破碎的关系，无论是与他人的关系还是与自己的关系。它极大地改变了我们的生活，使我们的生活更加美好，也使我们的合作能力得以提高。Now think about how many books are out there, how many words and mental tools are out there for you to obtain. Tools that will completely change how you interact with yourself and with others in the world, just like the concept of forgiveness has. Tools that can give you immense power and strength to solve more problems. Every time you truly learn a new word, you expand your mental tool kit, and by doing so, you increase your intelligence and you expand your ability to solve a variety of new problems. Mental tools are just as important and powerful as physical tools for solving and overcoming problems; they just operate differently. Mental tools help us make meaning of the world, and meaning can help us overcome problems or even remove them from our lives.现在想想这个世界上有多少书，多少词汇，多少思维工具可以获取，工具将彻底改变你在这个世界上与自己以及与他人的互动方式，就像宽恕这一概念带给你的影响一样。工具，可以给你巨大的动力和能量去解决更多的问题。每当你真正学会一个新词，你就扩充了你的思维工具箱，通过这样做，你就可以提升你的智力，提升你解决各种新问题的能力。对于解决问题和克服困难来说，思维工具与物理工具同样重要，同样强大，只是操作的方式不同。思维工具帮助我们理解世界的意义，而意义可以帮助我们克服问题，甚至把问题从我们的生活中消除。Let me give you an example. Think about the worst suffering you can? Got it? Ok, now imagine that you’re given a reason for this suffering. Imagine the clouds part and a voice gives you a reason, a justification, for why you’re suffering. Does this make the suffering more bearable? I think most people would respond by saying yes. Viktor Frankl details his experience as a prisoner in the WW2 concentration camps in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. And in it, he says, "In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice." He found out that meaning could lessen one’s suffering. He also paraphrases Nietzsche when he says, "‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.’"让我给你举个例子。想一想你能承受的最严重的痛苦。想到了吗？好的。现在想象一下，你所承受的苦难被赋予了原因，想象一下，云层分开，天空中有一个声音告诉你一个理由，一个解释，告诉你为什么你要受苦。这是否会让痛苦变得更容易忍受？我想大多数人的回答都是“是”。维克多·弗兰克尔在他的《人对意义的寻找》一书中详述了他在二战集中营中作为囚犯的经历。在书中，他写道：“从某种程度上说，苦难从找到意义的那一刻起就不再是苦难了，比如作为牺牲这样的意义。”他发现，意义可以减轻一个人的痛苦。他还转述了尼采的话，他说：“知生命之意者，可承生命之重。”So how does Frankl’s experience relate to what I’m talking about? Reading difficult books and expanding your mental toolkit will help you discover more why’s for your life. It will help you create greater meaning for the life you live. And according to both Frankl and Nietzsche, meaning, and the ability to produce it, is one of our greatest protections against the suffering of life. So I said that you can 10x your intelligence, your ability to solve problems, by expanding your mental toolkit. And I said that one way to expand your mental toolkit is by reading difficult books. But why difficult books? Reading is a lot like weight lifting for the mind. The more difficult books you learn to read, make sense of, and overcome, the stronger your mind becomes. Your mind becomes better at making meaning of things and responding to the world in a more effective way.那么弗兰克尔的经历与我所说的有什么关系呢？阅读困难的书籍，扩充自己的思维工具箱，将帮助你解答人生中的诸多为什么，它将帮助你为你的生活创造更多的意义。而根据弗兰克尔和尼采的说法，意义，以及创造意义的能力，是在生活的苦难面前，对我们最强有力的保护。所以我说你可以通过扩充你的思维工具箱高效提升你的智力，以及你解决问题的能力，并且我说，扩充你的思维工具箱的方法就是阅读困难的书籍。但为什么要读有难度的书呢？读书就像是大脑的举重运动。你阅读、理解、攻克的书籍越困难，从某种意义上说，你的大脑就越强大。你的大脑就能够更好地理解事物的意义，并以更有效的方式回应这个世界。So what makes a book difficult? I think that, in essence, for most people, what makes a book difficult is two things: novelty & abstraction. Novelty is when you come across something new: a new idea, a new word, a new perspective, or a new problem that you haven’t seen before. It’s a meeting with the unfamiliar, and unfamiliar things often make us feel uncomfortable and require a lot of work to make meaning out of. The more novelty there is inside a book, the harder it will be for the reader to get through and make sense of. But novelty is often what makes a difficult book worth reading! It’s introducing you to new mental tools which you can use to update your mental software. But if you shy away from new and difficult ideas, you become like the grandparent who uses old technology because they’re too scared to learn the new one. And by doing so, you limit your own potential.那么，使一本书困难的是什么呢？我想，从本质上讲，对于大多数人来说，一本书的难度主要取决于两个点：新颖与抽象。新颖是指你遇到新的东西：新的想法、新的用词、新的视角，或者是你以前没见过的新问题。新颖就是认识陌生的东西，而陌生的事物，往往让我们感到不适应，因此需要付出更多的努力，才能理解其中的意义。一本书越新颖，对读者来说就越难完全读懂理解。但往往正是新颖的东西才使得一本书值得一读。它会向你介绍新的思维工具，你可以用它来升级你的大脑软件。但如果你在新的以及困难的想法面前总是退却，你就会变得像是你只会使用旧技术的祖父母，因为他们害怕学习新的东西。而这样的做法，只会令你限制了自己的潜能。The second thing that makes a book hard to read is abstraction. The best way I can explain abstract ideas is by comparing them with their opposite: concrete ideas. Concrete ideas are things you can identify with any of the five senses: taste, smell, sound, touch, and sight. Anything you can experience with these five senses is concrete, but anything you can’t is abstract. And because they’re not easily understandable through sense experience, abstract ideas are hard to understand. Many people think they are useless. This is a huge mistake.第二个使得一本书难读的要素是抽象。解释抽象最好的方法就是将它与其反面进行比较：也就是具体这一概念。具体的东西是指你可以通过五感来识别的东西：味觉、嗅觉、听觉、触觉、视觉。凡是你能用这五感体验到的东西都是具体的，反之就是抽象的。由于抽象的东西不容易通过感官经验来理解，因此对人们来说就会很难懂。很多人都觉得这样的东西根本没用。这是一个严重的谬误。Here’s a good way I can describe the value of abstract ideas. Imagine someone with a landline at home for phone calls, a tv for entertainment, and a computer for doing research on the internet. All of these cost a certain amount of money and energy to maintain. But this person can actually replace the function of all of these devices with one: the cell phone. The cellphone is more efficient use of time and energy and can perform the function of the landline, the tv, and the computer, plus much more. Abstract ideas are similar. They replace the function of more basic ideas and make you more efficient with how you spend your time and energy. If you avoid difficult books because they’re abstract, you’re limiting your own access to more powerful mental tools.有一个很好的方式可以来描述抽象思想的价值。想象一下，一个人家里设置了一台座机，用来打电话，一台电视用来娱乐，还有一台电脑用来上网做研究。这些设备都需要一定的花费和精力来维护。但这个人其实可以用一个手机来代替所有这些设备的功能。手机可以更有效地利用时间和精力，并且它可以实现固定电话、电视和电脑以及许多其他设备的功能。抽象思想与这一例子很相似，它们能够同时取代诸多基本想法的功能，使你能够更加高效地利用你的时间和精力。如果你因为抽象就避开困难的书，你就限制了自己获取更多强大思维工具的机会。所以如果你避开难读的书，你就是在避开新的、更强大的思维工具。So how do you determine which books to read? In the beginning, I recommend reading the classics. The classics are time-tested tools that will introduce you to mental tools and concepts that have been effective for people all through out history, which is why they keep being passed down to the next generation. But as you develop your toolkit and your literary tastes, you will develop your own intuition for what you should read next, depending on the problems you’re facing and the tools you think you might need. I don’t want to convince you to only read classics because you would miss out on so many new ideas that could be useful and relevant, but at the beginning of your reading journey, you can’t really separate the wheat from the chaff on your own. So reading the classics and becoming acquainted with time-tested tools will help you develop an intuition to discern between good tools and bad ones.那么如何确定要读哪些书呢？刚开始的时候，我建议阅读经典作品。经典作品是久经时间考验的工具，它们将向你介绍在漫长的历史中对人们有效的思维工具和概念，这也是为什么经典会代代流传下来。但随着你工具箱的扩充和文学品味的提高，你会逐渐发展出自己的直觉，根据你所面临的问题和你认为可能需要的工具，知道你接下来应该读什么。我不想劝你只读经典的书籍，因为这样你会错过很多新的、可能会有用的想法。但在你阅读之旅开始的初期，你无法独立完成去粗取精的过程，因此这时阅读经典著作，熟悉久经时间考验的工具，将会有助于你培养一种辨别好的工具和坏的工具的直觉。One idea I see a lot on YouTube is the idea of speed reading or reading as many books as you can in a year. And here’s what I think about that. If speed and quantity is your highest value, you will almost certainly sacrifice difficulty and end up choosing easier books. And I already made a case for why you should read difficult books. Speed and difficulty are opposing values. If you read difficult books as I suggest, your reading speed will be very slow, but your mental strength will grow a lot more. On the other hand, the best way to read a lot of books is to read things you’re already familiar with that are short and easy to understand, but if you only read things you’re familiar with, you’ll never expand your mental toolkit. Maybe I’ve convinced you, and you’re ready to start your difficult book regimen and you want some help on starting.我在油管上经常看到的一种想法是快速阅读或在一年内尽可能多地读书。对此我的看法是，如果你优先追求的是速度和数量，你几乎一定会牺牲掉难度，选择一些简单的书来读。而我也已经告诉了你为什么要选择困难的书来读。速度和难度是两个无法兼顾的值。如果你像我建议的那样读有难度的书，你的阅读速度会很慢，但你的脑力会增长很多。另一方面，阅读大量书籍的最快方式是阅读自己已经熟悉的、并且简短、易于理解的内容。但如果你只读一些你熟悉的东西，你的思维工具将永远无法得到扩充。也许我的论点说服了你，你已经准备开始你困难的阅读之旅，而你想要一些帮助。I’m going to link to a list of great books in the description. Read the description for these books and find ten where the themes of the book overlap with the problems in your own life. And the reason I cut the number off at 10 is to prevent mindless speed-reading and to treat the process more like a weight lifting regimen. We want to keep our reps the same but increase the weight we’re lifting at, so we can improve our mental strength. If you read 10 books from the list, I think this will give you a good place to start on obtaining new mental tools. And maybe you won’t even get through 10, maybe you’ll only get through one, and that’s okay because these are difficult books that take time. And all that matters is that you try to progressively lift heavier by reading more and more difficult books. As you read more and more books, you’ll start to develop a natural intuition for what you should read next. And at some point, you might even become the creator of a new mental tool. Good luck!我将在描述中链接一份好书清单，阅读这些书的简介，找出十本主题与你生活中面对的问题相符的书。我之所以将数量定为10，是为了防止盲目的快速阅读，并且要将这一旅程当作是举重训练一样。我们保持重复的次数不变，但增加举起的重量，这样我们就可以提高我们的脑力。如果你从书单中读了10本书，我想这会是你开始获得新的思维工具的一个很好起点。也许你读不完10本，也许你只能完全读懂理解一本，这也没关系，因为困难的书总是比较费时，而重要的是，你要通过阅读更多、更难的书籍，逐步举起更重的重量。随着你读的书越来越多，你会开始发展出一种直觉，自然而然知道你接下来应该读什么。而也许有一天，你甚至可能成为一个新的思维工具的创造者。祝你好运！By Freedom In Thought译：Ahnam Law