Read "Impractical" Things: From Musk's Story to the True Meaning of Reading

 Have you ever read something that didn't help you get a raise, learn a new skill, or solve a problem — but after finishing it, you felt like you had one more way of looking at the world?

Just like that article about Elon Musk becoming the efficiency minister (read it here) — it's a story about a big-shot making a gut-level decision. You might never use this story at work, but it shows you a radically different decision-making logic. This "eye-opening" value is precisely what reading's most overlooked gift.

In 2026, Reading Returns to the "Impractical"

The 2026 National Reading Insight Report shows that while practical books (AI guides, finance, learning methods) remain popular, "emotional value" and "cultural return" reading is also growing. Psychology healing books dominate bestseller lists. Classics are being rediscovered. Collector's editions of ancient poetry are selling out.

What does this mean? While solving practical problems, people are also searching for "another possibility" in their inner lives — and those seemingly "useless" books are exactly what fills that need.

The "Usefulness of Uselessness"

Zhuangzi said it long ago: "Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but no one knows the usefulness of the useless." Reading a novel, browsing an essay, flipping through a book seemingly unrelated to your field — these things show no immediate returns. But they do something more important: they break your mental inertia.

When you read about Musk moving servers just because he "felt there were too many," causing access problems in some regions — you're not just learning an anecdote. You're absorbing an extreme interpretation of "efficiency." The next time you face a similar decision at work, that perspective might surface and give you one more dimension to think from.

Keep Reading, Not for Usefulness

The most enchanting thing about reading is precisely that it "allows purposelessness." Not every book needs to give you something. Not every article needs to yield three takeaway lessons. Sometimes, reading itself is the meaning. Turn a page. Open a window. That's enough.

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