reading to escape or embrace?
One of my guilty pleasures in life is reading fantasy/sci-fi novels. I started reading them when I was in middle school, and I still enjoy them now. I call it a guilty pleasure because when I was young I read to escape. When I read now I still do that to some extent; it's pretty easy to immerse yourself in the world of a book and get away from the unpleasant realities in your life. I think everyone has something that they use as a temporary refuge from the world, whether it's books, TV, food, shopping, or even friends. I don't think there is anything wrong with these things in and of themselves. But I think that the border between enjoyment and pure escapism is pretty thin. If I'm using my SFF reading as a buffer to truly avoid thinking about issues or avoid dealing with problems, then it has transformed into a tool to help me escape from, rather than live life.
A couple years ago I was flipping through the channels on TV and saw a PBS special on Robert F. Kennedy. I started watching it and was so fascinated by his life that I went to the library and borrowed a biography on him and read it. Sad to say, I knew very little about his life before then so I learned a lot from PBS and the book I read. Since then, every so often when I've come across someone from history who grabbed my interest, I try to find a biography on them and read it.
Why do I do this? Well, one, it's inspiring. I really like learning about how famous people came to be, what drove them (because pretty much all of them were/are extremely driven people), and why they think the way they do or did. Everyone has a story to tell, and even though one book may only show one angle on the person's life, I will at least get to know one side of them. The second reason is because reading what people have done in their lives and in the world inspires me to do something myself in life. I'm probably not going to change the world the way RFK or Keith Green did, but I can do my best to make my life purposeful in some way.
Thirdly, I think that if I'm going to be spending my time reading, in some ways it's healthier to be also reading about what's going on in the world. In the past, I've spent a lot of time (and by a lot I mean near 100%) reading about stories that happened in a fantasy realm. But I'm living in the world now, I want to learn about it, about the people in it now, what's going on now, and about what happened in the past. How else can I decide what my impact will be in the future?
A couple years ago I was flipping through the channels on TV and saw a PBS special on Robert F. Kennedy. I started watching it and was so fascinated by his life that I went to the library and borrowed a biography on him and read it. Sad to say, I knew very little about his life before then so I learned a lot from PBS and the book I read. Since then, every so often when I've come across someone from history who grabbed my interest, I try to find a biography on them and read it.
Why do I do this? Well, one, it's inspiring. I really like learning about how famous people came to be, what drove them (because pretty much all of them were/are extremely driven people), and why they think the way they do or did. Everyone has a story to tell, and even though one book may only show one angle on the person's life, I will at least get to know one side of them. The second reason is because reading what people have done in their lives and in the world inspires me to do something myself in life. I'm probably not going to change the world the way RFK or Keith Green did, but I can do my best to make my life purposeful in some way.
Thirdly, I think that if I'm going to be spending my time reading, in some ways it's healthier to be also reading about what's going on in the world. In the past, I've spent a lot of time (and by a lot I mean near 100%) reading about stories that happened in a fantasy realm. But I'm living in the world now, I want to learn about it, about the people in it now, what's going on now, and about what happened in the past. How else can I decide what my impact will be in the future?
