In light of my last post, may I just ask you to come with me for a moment? Don’t be scared. Fear can take the best of us, but it has a habit of leaving the worst of us behind to rule the world, so don’t let that take you. I may be prone to ramble, say nonsense, and try to get away with it. This will be a little more of that but it will also be an exploration of the written word and how it reflects on reality. This isn’t really a battle against reality, maybe a proxy war, but certainly not a battle…I don’t think.

This is really about what I prefer to read. I haven’t made much of a mystery about it, but I vastly prefer to read fiction. That isn’t to say I won’t pepper in so-called true stories or auto-biographies, especially on people or events that are of high interest to me. I’ve read dozens of books about the Apollo space program in one form or another and when you find an Erik Larson, it’s hard to read just one of his books.

Generally, when given the option, you will find a work of fiction in my hand over a work of “truth.” No, I don’t want to read a “self-help” book or some biography about another successful person whose only accomplishment is being successful. If they work for you, then more power to you.

Why do I think fiction is better? Firstly, I am not convinced that reality is real. That may seem like a cop-out. It is. In truth though, most of the world isn’t interesting most of the time. Put that on my headstone why don’t you? People tend not to change, and the story gets old really fast. The things that happen quickly are usually bad and most of the things that happen slowly are bad too. Meanwhile, we can study all the lines on each celeb face to ensure that we still have something to live up to. Look at the billionaire bank accounts and know that we can get there someday but at the same time know that we can’t, and we hold these two things in our heads at the same time and call them both truth.

Real characters, real people, are often too complex to grow and understand. Do you even understand yourself? Like truly?

Fiction is attainable because it’s unobtainable. You know you can’t be Gandalf, Skywalker, Snow, or Kvothe. You know you can’t meet them. They are figments of a writer’s imagination. No, they are more than that. They are a shared hallucination between the writer and their readers. These unreal people can’t hurt you, they aren’t causing global warming, but they can take up real space in your mind. And why shouldn’t they? You know them better than you can know anyone. You know their whole story from start to finish. That’s more than you can say about Ryan Reynolds, isn’t it? Not to disparage Deadpool, but if I am going to study and obsess over people I have never met, isn’t it healthier and safer for them to be unreal people?

Fiction is just cleaner. Simpler. I can’t be the next Bezos or Obama, nor would I want to, but maybe, just maybe I can live in some of these fictional worlds and maybe, just maybe, create a few of my own along the way. I apologize if this turned away from being a defense of fiction and more of a therapy session, but therapy is really what any of these blog posts are. If you can’t afford therapy, try writing.

Quote of the Moment:

“The future is there… looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.”

― William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Current Reads:

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson