Things That Matter

My summer reading binge is in progress.  I go and check out 10 or 20 books from the library, and then I stack them on my closet shelf and read through them, constantly replenishing the supply so that I never have less than 5 books out at a time.

Some summer, huh?

You know, I don't know much about life, but I know that stories matter.  I'm still trying to figure out exactly why they do, but at least I know that they do.

I mean, think about it.  I haven't had much heartbreak, pain or loss in my life;  I've never fallen in love, nor have I really known betrayal or bravery or danger.   But I swear I've felt these things anyway. Books.

It's not just that stories make me think, but rather that they physically resonate with me - when I read a good story I feel it inside.  I don't know how to describe how the importance of stories for me.  It's not like "Ah, that was a well-written book with rounded characters, a stellar plot and a fantastic ending." For me, a good book isn't dissected into its components and then declared "good";  a good book is a story that tumbles around inside me while reading and still lingers on my skin later on.  A good story is one that makes me think about life and myself and other people and what it really means to be alive.

It's a form of breathing, really.

It's like stories allow you to feel what you would never feel otherwise.

Maybe it's just that all of those words somehow grasp exactly what I'm feeling, or maybe it's just that they give me an excuse to feel something.  Either way, I eat stories, I scarf them down again and again and I'm still not full to the top.   I don't think I ever will be.  Why stories?  Why do stories matter?  I don't know, and it frustrates me, but I just know they do.

Obviously, not everyone feels this way about books, but I'd like to think that most people feel this way about something. There has to be something like this for everyone: something that helps them to feel the world and understand themselves.  Perhaps that's why people play the rebel role and "yolo" and make bad life choices and do stupid things, just because it allows them to feel it deep inside of them the way that I do.  To feel it running up and down their rib-cage.  Maybe they're just trying to find something that matters for them and something that allows them to feel the right way.  I've always wondered why people destroy themselves so willingly for just a bit of pleasure, but perhaps this is why.

Maybe that's the only reason that anyone does anything, to feel it.

And for what it's worth, I think, I think I can respect that.