When Reality is Too True

 

My Nightmare
9/15/2021

For almost two months now, I have been unable to read fiction. I've tried repeatedly. I just can't focus. This has never happened to me. Who am I if I can't read novels? 

I have no memory of the beginning of my obsession with fiction. My first specific memory of reading on my own was devouring the Nancy Drew mysteries when I was 9. Forty-five years later, I do not remember ever not being able to read fiction for weeks on end. The last novel I finished was really a novella, and that was at the end of July.

Until last week, I was just suffering in shame and silence. Then I had a conversation with two other novel eaters, and both of them told me they were experiencing the same debilitation.

What is going on?

I can't speak to anyone else's experience.  For me, the state of the world today has made it almost impossible for me to devote any mental energy to anything that isn't true. The positive side of this is that I am learning a lot about other people's experiences and improving my capacity for empathy as I learn.

Unfortunately for my novel reading life, I am also learning how much of a privilege it is for me to be able to enjoy fiction, and thus how much of a privilege it is to be able to rue the loss of that enjoyment. I have a home. I have food. I have some semblance of safety. What a privilege it is for me to worry about losing my ability to lose myself in fantasy.

And yet, maybe fantasy is what keeps us going. 

What keeps us hopeful? If we lose our ability to engage in "what ifs" and "what abouts," what have we lost?  What is the value of distraction and delusion? My current nonfiction read is about that very question. Maybe I'll blog about that next week.