Reading fiction improves our social skills

I remember I had always been good at deciding whether somebody was a good or a bad person from a first encounter. And I mainly exercised this ability in high school and at the university, when I used to give verdicts about teachers to my colleagues: this one's good, oh! that one is a bitch. And it always turned out I had been right. And where was it that I learned so much about people? It was definitely not from a very intense social interaction I was part of on a regular basis. No, my social skills came from a different source, one which used to be considered giving opposite results: reading fiction.

Novelist and psychologist Keith Oatley argues that fiction can help us empathize with other people and connect with something larger than ourselves. It can facilitate our understanding of some other worlds than ours and it makes us better when interacting with others. Now I have got my answer. I have been really puzzled by how I was able to understand others, by the way I managed to get through to people by just asking the questions they were eager to answer and by trying to find out things they liked to talk about and then introduce them into our conversations. I am very fond of my findings in terms of people and their worlds and I rarely like to talk about my own, I'd rather keep it to myself, unless somebody is really interested in hearing about it.

It turns out my fiction reading throughout the years does not have the effect of alienating me from reality, on the contrary, it gets me closer to it, it helps me comprehend things and people through a different way; not by direct contact, but by reading of worlds where people live their lives and aren't aware of somebody studying them; of all the worlds which one cannot possibly manage to come in contact with in real life, but nonetheless available to us and accessible at any time of life.

There's no bigger joy in life than reading a very good book, which depicts a world of people that go through the things you thought could happen only to you. There's no other pleasure than finding out that there have been and will be people just like you, that a direct contact with someone you like is not the only choice given by life.

Simplicity in the way of being

If I were to cast a long and careful glance in the past, I would definitely be able to see an almost painful longing for a different way of being. I knew what it was back then, but I knew it only at the emotional level, not exactly aware of the whereabouts of all those feelings of craving for something else, for what I did not have, a rebellion against a wave of thoughts and actions which, though being mine, I did not accept as being truly representative of who I was or what I wanted.

I have always been fond of simplicity; simplicity in food, in clothes, in the relationship with others, in all approaches of life. And when I saw simplicity, I would fall in love with it. Because being simple in your very nature means being satisfied with life, even being grateful that you are alive. I cannot think of a better existential perspective. The struggle for a more positive view on life has marked my whole existence so far. I've been looking for reasons as long as I can remember, and I've got quite good memory. Am I the contrast of simplicity? No, not exactly. Would simplicity save me? It definitely would.

A conformity to the given state of things offers more satisfaction in what one does and goes through. The more pretenses we have in life, the more we want to achieve, the less happy we are with everything. There is no end to our aspirations, the moment we reach a certain goal, another takes its place and so it goes forever. I have met people who were so far behind others in terms of success and personal achievements, but who would turn out to be models of optimism, of wonderful optimism. My deep admiration goes to them. A movie I have recently seen reminded me again of how fortunate one can be if one finds simplicity and makes it a friend for life.

We are what and who we like

Life, it seems to me, has fundamentally one significant route provided for us, that of love. Love for people, love for things, love for an identified piece of the large spectrum of choices we are provided with in the world. It shapes our lives, it never vanishes from inside us and accompanies us till the end of the road.

We are whom we love. Just like what we wear every day expresses loyally our approach to the things surrounding us, our preferences in terms of people is the expression of our emotional and spiritual development. Our worthiness in the world is measured by the appreciation of others, and the quality has priority over quantity. We tend to establish certain patterns of behavior and adopt certain attitudes by affiliation to who might judge us.

We all have an audience in life, even though for the majority of us it's just an imaginary one. It helps us get perspective and I surely believe it helps us improve ourselves. Reputation is a value of a powerful significance for our peace of mind and it totally depends on how we live our lives in the eyes of the others. And by others I mean that small group of people you have picked out to represent the way of life to your liking. Only certain people matter for each of us and one should persevere in finding the people one believes matter for oneself. They will be the ones to help us become better persons by a daily scrutiny of the values they cherish and we must have.