Why do I read fiction?
An essay on the arranged marriage with non-fiction, the wondering mind of a child, the building of the crystal palace of the mind and the game of life-long learning
By gaining admission to a research university, I married the act of reading, but never finishing academic chapters and articles. (Not even books!) Funnily enough, it all happened without me consciously remembering the moment when I said yes. Have I ever even given my consent for my attention to live in an arranged marriage with this amount of academic papers, and when did I even let my mind be engaged with non-fiction exclusively? The fast-paced rat race of a university, hundreds of pages of mandatory literature per week coming at you as if water was falling on your head in a waterfall, in the grey rabbit hole of information, far from feeling connected to things that really matter.
Loss of my authentic human-ness is what this resulted in. Confusion and the endless questioning of my self-worth on a scale from 0 to 10, all while caring less and less for the material I was supposed to immerse myself in. I felt drowning. This needed an end. I wanted to divorce the institutional pressure of reading non-fiction. At least, the non-fiction pieces do not have a soul and instead try to acquire mine.
Remembering the child I once was, eyes wide open and focused on the present moment, always carrying my little notebooks and books around the house, I had to realize non-fiction was not even part of my life and yet I was learning more than ever. The authenticity of this endeavor was echoed by my parents’ ever-criticizing notes on why do I do this. I said, ‘Just because.’ Imagine a small blonde girl roaming around in the house with her small bag of books acting like she has business to get done, and places to go to. I loved playing this, it was fun until it was just a game. I had a favorite question I used to twist and turn in my mind a lot: “Is there a Book of Everything?”
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I had to discover the magic I once felt for life was gone. No more wonderings and ponderings on our vastly beautiful world. I closed my eyes and refused to see, because then, during the first year of university, all I saw was the duty of being a good student, reading all the lines, and sharing facts in class. However, my mind was shut under the pressure to be open. This resulted in the poverty of imagination and the overwhelming reality of early adulthood, living abroad, alone. Not being able to cope well, I fell into a certain kind of lethargy, a haze of the mind in which my memory was dampened and used only to irrationally worry.
It all started with me rediscovering my love for learning. The moment when I officially cheated on the arranged marriage with non-fiction. I feel suspicious that schools indeed do have their boundaries (just like suspecting how your partner might be toxic) in the ways they can serve people’s minds and knowledge, I encountered on the journey of self-learning. The game of life-long learning is a fun one to play. It truly feels like I am a character in “The Book of Everything” I was once so keen on finding. It is more than sitting in a concrete room so white with all its four walls blocking the signal not only on your phone but also in the neural realm of your brain responsible for your creative imagination. Self-learning seemed so exciting, so endless and pure in contrast to the grey days of school.
The serendipitous act of coming across a book during your ritualized bookstore visit is one of the greatest examples of the Universe showing you the magic you could not possibly encounter hadn’t you trusted the unexpected. It is simply the beauty of the times coming together and the physical matter aligning in your favor. You running your pointing finger through the shelf just to randomly pick that one book that feels like was put there for you. Seeing it all coming together, I start believing in the magic yet again and again of how this life can be of wonders, had our minds not fallen into the trap of rational thinking.
What kind of role does the fictive branch of books play in the life of a human? Reading fiction is not a waste of time, but an investment in building the crystal palace of your mind. This crystal palace acts as a fortress of unimaginable strength, and a structure prone to destruction simultaneously. Just like the gardens in a crystal palace, you need to cultivate this garden of your mind with the tools available and with the possibly endless imagination that is already hiding in the forest of creative plants you cannot see from the tree of excuses.
Reading fiction means…
Living a life you could have never lived otherwise. Getting lost in the mind of the author so seamlessly you cannot feel where your mind ends, and the storyteller’s mind starts. Expanding your mental, emotional, and physical horizons while traveling through time and space landing in the Universe of the story. Remembering that the world is both devastating and beautiful. Entertaining certain ideas, emotions, worldviews, twisting and twirling them until they become your own. Escaping the pain of reality through the lines of a shockingly pleasing story. Tending to the natural inclination of the human brain to form stories to interpret its own reality. Developing the skills of attention, anticipation, and empathy. Expanding the capability of your writing and speaking skills seamlessly, so it does not feel like a hassle as it used to feel so at school.
I have been wondering why people are reading fiction. Is it only the entertainment of it? Or being able to experience other lives? Do people even think about their reasons and their choices of a book at all? Or is there a mysterious force at play in the covers and pages of a book that attracts certain humans’ attention to them?
Playing the game of life-long learning is a fun one, and reading fiction shall be an organically implemented act in the daily routine of our creative minds.