Using fiction addiction to show our desire for beatitude

[Memento Mori]

Without a doubt, we are a fiction-addicted people. Look at our fixation on TV shows, movies, and the latest book fads. Think about how over the years people have been taken in by the worlds of LOTR, Harry Potter, Twilight, and now Fifty Shades of Grey. What are we searching for? Part of our compulsion is certainly the pleasurable act of reading itself: it feels good to read because we activate the reward centers of the brain. But isn't it more than that? Isn't it true that we find ourselves wanting to be somewhere else because we believe there is something fundamentally deficient about this present world?

When we escape into fiction, we are trying to get to the so-called perfect world. Even when we enter fictional worlds that are far from morally or emotionally perfect this is true. Even in dark fiction, if it does what good fiction should do, we are in rapture. We are "caught up" in the world and have only a minimal awareness of ourselves. The perfect world is never within grasp when we read, but our experience of rapture brings us closer to the possibility of a world where everything is perfectly interesting and satisfying and full of meaning.

This is a rough sketch of my thoughts. Please prune and expand where you see fit. But I think if you asked someone if she desires heaven and she says no, look at her bookshelf and ask her what's so captivating about imaginary worlds.

 

[holyorders]

I like your post and I agre whole-heartedly.


Since childhood I had a very hard time. I was what is known as a 'latchkey kid'. My parents were away when I got home from school so I got into fiction to cope with being alone. It is very natural in these troubling times.

I think it boils down to us longing for that original gift God had given us. A paradise that we imagine free from pain and death. I've literally read the first couple pages of Genesis over and over again. I've tried to draw what paradise is.

All I know is that we long for that because as spiritual as we become we tend to see just how hellish this world is becoming. We just want to be home with our God.

 

[Memento Mori]

I like your post and I agre whole-heartedly.


Since childhood I had a very hard time. I was what is known as a 'latchkey kid'. My parents were away when I got home from school so I got into fiction to cope with being alone. It is very natural in these troubling times.

I think it boils down to us longing for that original gift God had given us. A paradise that we imagine free from pain and death. I've literally read the first couple pages of Genesis over and over again. I've tried to draw what paradise is.

All I know is that we long for that because as spiritual as we become we tend to see just how hellish this world is becoming. We just want to be home with our God.

There are a few books I've read that just really gave me a longing for the restoration of paradise. (I too love Genesis 1-2.) You might enjoy them:

Black by Ted Dekker - the start of an allegorical series that treats of Eden and the Fall.

Havah by Tosca Lee - set in the Garden before and after the Fall, from Eve's perspective.

Demon: A Memoir by Tosca Lee - it's about the fall of the angels, but it also filled me with a desire to go back to perfect world God created.

 

[Memento Mori]

Just think holyorders, we're almost there. In the blink of an eye you and I will be on our deathbeds, and then Godwilling it's the perfect happiness of seeing God while we await the restoration of all things. Just a few more years on this earth. The days are long, but the years are short, and sooner than we know we will die. Lord make us ready.

 

[m.a.r.X]

My parents were away when I got home from school so I got into fiction to cope with being alone. It is very natural in these troubling times.

Me too
I had a world of my own. Really crazy stuff lol

And yeah, I love fiction too. Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard is my favourite at the moment

 

[_Shannon_]

I think we could have a throw down on our hands if I told you what I really think. So let me just say, that it can be a huge, GIANT error to extrapolate one's personal experience with something (in this case fiction) and apply it to everyone.

You are making a very large assumption that all who read do so for exactly the same purposes for which you read. I can assure you that I neither read for pleasure, nor escape as my primary purposes for reading. Nor is it to seek some sort of feel=good "perfect world". In fact the reasons you provide for the purpose of reading do not resonate with me at all.

 

[Memento Mori]

I think we could have a throw down on our hands if I told you what I really think. So let me just say, that it can be a huge, GIANT error to extrapolate one's personal experience with something (in this case fiction) and apply it to everyone.

You are making a very large assumption that all who read do so for exactly the same purposes for which you read. I can assure you that I neither read for pleasure, nor escape as my primary purposes for reading. Nor is it to seek some sort of feel=good "perfect world". In fact the reasons you provide for the purpose of reading do not resonate with me at all.

So why do you read? What are you looking for in a book?

 

[_Shannon_]

So why do you read? What are you looking for in a book?

When I read I am looking to experience and encounter the big truths, the universal human experience in a way new to me. I seek to borrow the life experiences and perspectives of others in order to grow and be bigger. Sometimes, this means being ripped absolutely to shreds by what I have read--but then taking those pieces and being a new creation than who and what I was before. Sometimes it means reading something which requires my heart and soul to expand just to take it all in.

I read to learn and to grow. I want my notions and ideas of things to be challenged--it helps me gain clarity on both what I do and do not believe. It helps me to both know who I do and I do not want to become and be.

Every now and then I will read something just for the sheer joy of it. Just to laugh and to marvel at the words and construction of it all.

It's the same reasons for why I listen to music, watch films, look at art.

It's all a tool to be made bigger than I was before and live the now in ever greater measure and magnitude.

 

[Antigone]

When I read I am looking to experience and encounter the big truths, the universal human experience in a way new to me. I seek to borrow the life experiences and perspectives of others in order to grow and be bigger. Sometimes, this means being ripped absolutely to shreds by what I have read--but then taking those pieces and being a new creation than who and what I was before. Sometimes it means reading something which requires my heart and soul to expand just to take it all in.

I read to learn and to grow. I want my notions and ideas of things to be challenged--it helps me gain clarity on both what I do and do not believe. It helps me to both know who I do and I do not want to become and be.

Every now and then I will read something just for the sheer joy of it. Just to laugh and to marvel at the words and construction of it all.

It's the same reasons for why I listen to music, watch films, look at art.

It's all a tool to be made bigger than I was before and live the now in ever greater measure and magnitude.

This.

I occasionally read and enjoy trash - be it gory thrillers or Janet Evanovich - but when I read too much of it, I feel like I'm missing out on something. I read a lot of literature. I want to know about big themes, and how people much, much smarter than I am look at them. I love books with complex characters and offbeat storylines, where morality isn't black and white.

Read Coetzee or McEwan to know what I mean.

 

[Memento Mori]

When I read I am looking to experience and encounter the big truths, the universal human experience in a way new to me. I seek to borrow the life experiences and perspectives of others in order to grow and be bigger. Sometimes, this means being ripped absolutely to shreds by what I have read--but then taking those pieces and being a new creation than who and what I was before. Sometimes it means reading something which requires my heart and soul to expand just to take it all in.

I read to learn and to grow. I want my notions and ideas of things to be challenged--it helps me gain clarity on both what I do and do not believe. It helps me to both know who I do and I do not want to become and be.

Every now and then I will read something just for the sheer joy of it. Just to laugh and to marvel at the words and construction of it all.

It's the same reasons for why I listen to music, watch films, look at art.

It's all a tool to be made bigger than I was before and live the now in ever greater measure and magnitude.

Fair enough. I think for me, accumulating imaginary experience is a byproduct and not the real motivation to keep coming back. For me it's grasping for something I have to wait for.

 

[holyorders]

I think we could have a throw down on our hands if I told you what I really think. So let me just say, that it can be a huge, GIANT error to extrapolate one's personal experience with something (in this case fiction) and apply it to everyone.

You are making a very large assumption that all who read do so for exactly the same purposes for which you read. I can assure you that I neither read for pleasure, nor escape as my primary purposes for reading. Nor is it to seek some sort of feel=good "perfect world". In fact the reasons you provide for the purpose of reading do not resonate with me at all.

Do you find something wrong in reading for pleasure or escapism? It sounds like it.

 

[christseeker45]

I read because I enjoy it, not to look for paradise. Yes it can be an escape temporarily but certainly I do not look for paradise. For that I have OTR

 

[Worcester Beacon]

When I read I read for one of two reasons - to be educated or to be entertained and in some cases you can mix them depending on your reading material.

I for one read fantasy books such as Harry Potter or LOTR just for pure fantasy and then there are history books on WWII, biography such as Margaret Thatcher or the Beatles. But I also love to read Scripture and books that will help guide me to God and His wonderful words.

With that said I would saythat there are books that are dangerous and not meant to be read, those that teach how to reject God ie pagan or satanic books, those avoid because the cost is too much!


There is nothing wrong with mixing your reading you just have to discern fact from fiction and the good from the bad.

 

[_Shannon_]

Do you find something wrong in reading for pleasure or escapism? It sounds like it.

There's no judgement. I just don't read for that.

Often (but certainly not always!) people who read for escapism/numbing reasons read much crappier books than I tend to read. I think everyone numbs to some extent, and that's it's actually necessary to cognitive development in it's proper place and balance. On the whole, reading--as the means to give the brain a break--seems pretty innocuous.

 

[_Shannon_]

Fair enough. I think for me, accumulating imaginary experience is a byproduct and not the real motivation to keep coming back. For me it's grasping for something I have to wait for.

I tend toward real experiences. I have a pretty ridiculously rich and full life.

 

[Elysium]

im with shannon and antigone on this one

i read for those reasons

sometimes if i am having a bad day i read to escape
or i read something inspirational to remind me that there is good in this world

but mostly escapism isnt my m.o.