Daily we all must read online more or less factual information to do our jobs, keep up our lives with others and meet our everyday needs—medical, grocery, clothing, car, home repair, money managing, etc. But what’s missing?
Let’s try an analogy: every day we travel by motor-driven vehicles—clearly the best choice for getting to most places most quickly. Yet when we have a bit of leisure to follow our own desires, we often choose a different kind of movement: walking, jogging, hiking, bicycling, swimming, boats, trains. Though less efficient in getting somewhere quickly, this satisfies some other, deeper need of our being. This part of us knows life is not just about getting there, but how.
Could reading fiction also satisfy this other, less factual and closer-to-us use of our time?
It could help, but we’re not there yet if we stop at reading “formula fiction”—romances, detective stories, westerns or various “shoot-em-ups”. These can be entertaining, but there’s a mechanical, predictable quality there which doesn’t reach a hungry inner-self.
Instead, try reading literary fiction—the truly engaging work of literary masters, authors like Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka or Flannery O’Connor. Or discover a contemporary master, not yet recognized.
This kind of fiction can take you to a place where your inner character encounters novel or short story characters who are facing a real and complex world of deeper meaning, like the one you may inwardly be hungry for.
