Have you ever tried smelling that fresh parchment, right after delicately removing the cover from a brand new book?
Or
Have you simply, flipped pages of a random book in a bookstore/library, while finding something that makes a calling for your soul?
Well, if you haven’t yet, then let me tell you that you’re missing out on life!!!
Honestly, till 7-8 years back, I could have never imagined myself saying this to anyone. I would’ve probably ignored the advice myself (wait, wait, you don’t ignore this!!) but now when I look back at the time when I encountered a book, in my school library and decided to give it a shot and spent the next three days reading it, as if it was the only thing I was meant to do in life, I’m nothing but grateful that I found a world to escape this pretentious one.
Whoever said that reading fiction is a simple yet magnificent act of escapism, said it right because the moment you delve into a world, creatively crafted by an author, you find yourself unprecedentedly ornamented with an ability to grasp multiple dimensions of a wide-ranging emotional spectrum, you’re allowed to envision a world of your own choice and when I say your choice, it literally means, you can have a green sky, a rose-bed road, a purple ocean or whatever you like; the best part is that your world will be free of age-old rotten societal norms.
Trust me, reading fiction which is quite widely known as a habit of living in fairytales has much more to offer. Some recently conducted research in neuroscience, concludes that, while reading a non-fiction book helps to seek solutions (mostly academic), on the other hand, reading fiction develops the emotional, spiritual, and cognitive quotient of an individual. Every time I read a story, I get to step into each character’s shoes and look at life from his/her perspective, in that moment, I’m the one who makes an argument in favor, and the very next moment I'm making a contradicting argument from the voice of the other character, ultimately becoming more considerate in reality after witnessing how things look different from different eyes.
As much as the almost-extinct reading culture makes me perturbed, it’s quite upsetting how some people who still read, find investing time in fiction, despicable. People who look down on fiction, sound like individuals, ignorant of emotions, or scared to experience something that might evoke their inner dilemma. It’s as if someone’s building guards around them to avoid encountering several differing emotional facets of life. Fictional stories are nothing but beautifully crafted tales to make you believe in love, hope, and faith.
And before anyone says it, I’m not, in any manner trying to demean the non-fiction genre but it’s imperative to understand that while non-fiction, indeed, helps your intelligence quotient, fiction is intricately designed to enhance your emotional quotient.
Will you start reading fiction now?
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