What of depth in reading?
This evening I settled in to read a book I've been looking forward to starting for months. However, I didn't make it to the first line of the introduction, struck as I was by the quote heading off the page--
Yes, a key can lie for ever in the place where the locksmith left it, and never be used to open the lock the master forged it for.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
This moved me. I sat back picturing an old key on a forgotten table, the lock it was made for only just nearby. I imagined the emotions that could be connected to thatI thought of the "yes" beginning the quote, framing it as a settled inevitability of unfulfilled purpose, a stark and whispered "of course" that unravelled the practiced sense of completion that is the norm in modern life. I paused here for far longer than I intended simply letting each piece of the quote inhabit different corners of my mind, taking new looks at its wholeness and thinking on it all over again with every new angle.
I do not know the original context of this quote, what point it was used to illustrate or what greater ideas it helped frame. I don't even know how it connects to the book I'm about to read. All I know is the effect it had upon me, the curiosity that unused key helped unlock that I might explore later when I do research its context. Or, I will sit with it for ever myself, content with the taste of sublimity it gave me.
At this time of year it's common to see people resolving to read a book a week or 100 pages every day. They can skim those stones across the lake all they like, but certainly when their goal is to keep bouncing atop what is easily seen, they'll miss what unturned locks rest beneath the water.