What do you read for?

Why do you read? What are you trying to achive with reading? Do you read for pleasure or for a specific goal? (Or do you read for Satan like Cliff...?)

i read to
1. impress girls
2. feel superior to brainlets

The reason changed over the years. I first started reading because I was bored of electronic media and wanted something different. Then I got interested in various subjects and immediately after I started delusioning myself that I was living some kind of literary lifestyle. Now I just read out of boredom, mostly in English (not my native tongue) and sometimes in German to advance in my language learning process.

So I don't have to talk to my wife.

Have you read Stoner?

Right now its mainly to grow as a person, "life energy" and entertainment.

No, but after looking it up, it sounds interesting. Thanks.

Its cheaper than videogames

i fugging love better than food desu

I read for the superficial sense of being well-read
and the illusion of having achieved something, done something worthwhile with my time. And I dont want to think about dying.

>and the illusion of having achieved something, done something worthwhile with my time
This

I read (and consume other kinds of art) for a few reasons, but primarily I think it's to simulate self expression. I lack the skill and creativity to do it myself so I look for work that...I don't know, is representative of what I feel/think, maybe.

Also all of these. Except dying, I think about that pretty often

To make my pseudointellectual posturing more believable.

i only read when this unexplainable feeling of my brain and soul rotting occurs that no videogames nor movies can cure;

My parents basically raised me to be a brainlet. They never read, they never encouraged the kids to read, and they constantly BLASTED the tv volume so when I mustered up the shame to attempt to read it was impossible.
I'm a father now and I do not want the same fate for my children. I read to set an example. I actively encourage kids to read. I forbid the viewing of any television outside of Saturday morning and maybe 30 minutes before bed, if chores and homework are complete.

I read for fun, and to broaden my perspective on what is possible. It's a way to live trough the fantasies of others. I enjoy visualizing the scenes in the novels that I read, the creative process of animating the characters.

I'm surprised at all the people who don't read for self-gratification but for some other reason. How did you people become so masochistic?

Can pseudointellectuals become intellectuals, or is there a fundamental disconnect between 'wanting to appear superior' and 'being genuinely curious' that can't be bridged?

I read because it makes me feel better about myself. If I'm honest, the reason I started reading is because my waifu reads a lot too. And I've just been enjoying literature ever since. I know it's pathetic but it's been working out pretty food for me.

...

To become an intellectual one has to contribute with something to his culture.

I think a good way to bridge that gap is a large dose of humility, or humilitation if you wanna go the hard route.

I read to kill my flesh.

I read for pleasure, emotion, to challenge myself, stimulate myself intellectually, and learn things.

I read for escapism.
For some reason a switch has been flipped in my mind so that reading makes me less guilty than other forms of escapism despite the fact that I'm flushing my life down the drain and have become an alcoholic.

Moral edification

>Mom, dad and grandmas used to read to me and my siblings all the time.
>We always were surrounded by books, my parents aren't rich so they always brought us to the secondhand stores to buy books.
>I have spend all my life surrounded by them. There are shitty books and good books, and they are always around, from time to time someone just give the book to somebody else, but then more books arrive from gifts or for buying it.
So I don't know what I am trying to achieve. I only know reading is a way of learning, sometimes is boring, sometimes is worth it, and I got accustomed to do it since my childhood.

I used to think of reading as an infinite source of power. "If i read enough, I will find a gf and overcome fear of death, in due time". Growing up, I'm not so sure anymore