Why I Still Read Fiction

In a world obsessed with productivity, reading stories feels almost rebellious. I think that's exactly why it matters.

People ask me why I spend time on novels when I could be reading something "useful" — news, nonfiction, something that will help me get somewhere. And I understand the logic. Time is finite. Attention is currency. Why spend it on things that didn't happen?

But here's what I've come to believe: fiction is the only place where you can fully inhabit someone else's life. Not observe it, not analyze it — live it. And that changes you in ways that facts alone never can.

When I read about a character making a terrible decision, I don't just understand it intellectually. I feel the pull of it. I understand the exact combination of fear and hope and stubbornness that leads a person there. That's not something a statistic can give you.

Fiction builds empathy from the inside out. It doesn't tell you to care about people who are different from you — it makes you be them, for a few hundred pages, until caring becomes instinct.

In a world that increasingly rewards certainty and speed, fiction asks you to slow down, sit with ambiguity, and hold two contradictory things as true at once. That feels like a skill worth keeping.