Saving the world through fiction

Welcome!
I am glad your internet travels have led you here to this humble blog. Perhaps your attention was arrested by the wildly catchy title of this blog post: "Saving the world through fiction." Perhaps you are thinking that is an absurd claim and you are about to navigate away from such silliness, but wait! If you give me a few minutes of your time, I will convince you that reading fiction is healthy, will improve your life and the lives of others around you, and might just SAVE THE WORLD.

I used to read for fun, when I was younger. My parents decided to make me a leper by giving away our television so I had nothing better to do with my time than read. It was one of the best decisions they ever made.

Reading transports you to a different world, similar to the way movies or TV shows do.  The difference, I believe, is that you learn to appreciate story when you read, whereas watching television without being an experienced reader is nothing more than vapid entertainment. Appreciating story means learning to empathize with a character, learning to put yourself in the setting of the book, learning to suspend disbelief and learning to imagine.

So when I was little, I read for fun. Then I went to college and I read for school. Then I took a break because I thought I didn't have time for reading and I hadn't yet realized how important it was. But one glorious day I picked up another book and by the time I had finished, I was wondering why I had ever stopped making time for reading. The difference between little me, reading for fun, and big me, reading as a grown up, was that I realized how powerful literature was. I wasn't reading for fun anymore - though it was fun - I was reading for other reasons. To escape. To understand. To imagine. To believe.


That is beautiful, you think, wiping away a tear, perhaps, at my touching commitment to literature, but it still doesn't explain how reading is healthy and can improve my life.

Well, alright. If you insist:
How can reading fiction be healthy?
It can be healthy because it taps into the emotions, offers consolation and joy, offers an outlet for stress, and helps you communicate with others about both the difficult and wonderful things in life. As Brian Viner points out in his article "Well Read," "words on a page can sometimes reach the parts the medical profession cannot." You can read that article here. It examines the non-profit initiative Get Into Reading (based in the UK) that is using literature as a form of group therapy for various troubled souls, including high-security psych ward patients.

How can reading fiction improve my life and the lives of others around me?
Reading teaches empathy. I have seen it in classrooms myself and heard many teachers talk about this phenomena. There was a recent study done that examined the connection between fiction and empathy, finally determining that reading fiction makes people more empathetic with others around them. Here is the link to another blog that also discusses this study. I don't think I need to state how much we could use more people who were more empathetic in the world.

There you have it. I'm sure you are smart enough to figure out that people who live healthier emotional lives and are more empathetic can make a very big difference in the world; it isn't too much of a stretch then (notice I said "too much") to believe that reading can, albeit indirectly, save the world.

Before I let you go, I must offer a disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I am not a therapist, and I am not trying to suggest that you read a book INSTEAD of seeking counseling if you feel that you need it. I am merely suggesting that fiction can improve your life and help you deal with reality. And I'm also suggesting that fiction makes the world a much better place to live in.

Now go get a book off the shelf, crack it open and feel the slide of the crisp pages between your fingers, contemplate the first page and the tantalizing hints that the title gives you about what might be contained in its pages. Then turn to chapter one...and start saving the world.