Defense of Fiction

The other day, I told my husband that what I really wanted was a reading vacation.  That is 100% something that I made up, but I feel like it is a perfect description of one of my favorite experiences.  I am all for a good trip. A trip is a visit to a specific place to do, to see, and to experience. Those are fabulous.  But I am more of a vacation girl. I like to go somewhere and just be. To purely exist. To do what I affectionately term a reading vacation.  Here is what that entails: travel somewhere (it doesn’t really matter where or how far that is), find a peaceful place (beach, porch, couch, etc.), and sit, or more specifically read.  Throw in some food, and a good walk daily, and I am basically the best version of myself.

If you want to truly do it right, you do not fly, you drive… which allows the passenger (me) to read at least 1 book before you even reach the destination.  

This is basically how I spent the first 18 summers of my life.

Also, these books must be fiction. Period.

I feel as if fiction has been highly underrated for the past decade.  We live in a time of life where there is always something to ingest. To learn.  To evaluate and debate. There are seasons where I rarely pick up a book because I must keep up on T.V., social media, and podcasts.  I have to stay informed. I have to be learning, growing, challenging myself (Self-helping). There seem like so few hours in the day that there is no time for inefficient things like fiction.  Even though the amount of netflix we can binge in our “very busy” lives would highly contradict these statements.

Can I go out on a limb and say that I think we may take ourselves a little too seriously?  The quest for knowledge leans sometimes to the side of pretentious. I’m all for being informed, wise, and discerning.  But our obsession with knowing all things about all things just seems a little… much.

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge.  Knowledge for the sake of debate. For being able to have something to say in a conversation.  For the sake of not knowing less than someone else. Sometimes it just feels a little, idk, self absorbed.

And we are being informed at times, to our detriment.  The extent that we allow others to tell what to think, really can hinder us from learning to think for ourselves.  We have stopped thinking critically. We have stopped making our own connections. We have stopped problem solving and exploring.  Because, we always have a voice in our ear telling us what to do and how to think.

It is exhausting.

So could I challenge everyone to take a step of faith into inefficiency for say… 200 pages?  However long it that may take you to read. Just one fiction book. One journey into the abstract.  Just allow you brain to breath. To enjoy. To imagine.

Pick a good one.  

Because I will say that I have learned more and gained more insight from a thoughtfully  written novel than I have from some nonfiction books that I have read. I have experienced other cultures, other viewpoints,  other motivations.

So that’s my request.  It may be silly, and really have not much eternal value.  But I challenge everyone to read a nonfiction story this year.

(I have some recommendations if you like.)

(I also may challenge you to stay away from some of the fluffy chick flick or crime thrillers going around.  I have a personal frustration with books written to be popular instead of to be creative and impactful. Just me tho)