Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

disruptivelychill OP t1_j1ogrgk wrote

Reply to comment by Starstuffi in Do you find yourself reading more non-fiction books and less fiction as you get older? by disruptivelychill

Love your answer, thanks for elaborating. I think i relate to what you're saying. When I was younger I craved new experiences and fiction opened the world for me. I could live thousands lives, as my own had yet to get started if that makes sense. So it definitely served my growth that way. I wouldn't say that I read fiction for entertainment/escapism either. It was paradoxically very practical, exactly like in your case. Now I have seen and experienced my fair share of life and I no longer look for thar kind of experience that fiction provided. My priority now is to learn things that I haven't had the chance to learn earlier, to understand myself and the world around me better. Thanks for giving me the words to get some clarity over my own experience!

Btw, interesting what you say about the radical difference in depth of real life as opposed to story. To this, I don't relate. I think that also bleak and mundane things around us can be interesting/story-worthy, depends on your gaze, it's all in the eyes of the person that looks.

2

Starstuffi t1_j1oiaqy wrote

Yeah, I'll agree with you! I'm now more interested in trying to engage with things (by doing skills or learning about them) than I am in just opening up more doors of potential. We're in the do stuff stage of life now, where for good or for ill, the amount of options/potential for ways we could spend our time dwindle every day. (This isn't inherently bad; but to dedicate yourself to learning music, you might not have the time or money to invest in learning to riding a horse, etc.) I'm aware of more options now than I could capitalize on in 5 lifetimes, much less the rest of this 1!

There's also not... as much that's completely new? Like, I frequently see a movie or read a book or play a game and know 'wow, I would've been WILD about this 15 years ago, it's a much better version of Thing I Was Into Then but have now tired out as an interest for myself currently'. I notice this with motifs/aesthetics I really like, and also NOTABLY with things that have archetypes or themes I really enjoy but have already thought about a lot.

I used to find meaning almost exclusively in other people and relationships, but that isn't working out for the way my life is. I am getting better about finding depth in other things independently, but it's required a lot of reworking away from other current human beings (which is challenging as a very social person). It's complicated and more personal than I think /r/books needs as to why that's necessary for me LOL. But history, ecology, and religion/spirituality is helping me find that depth in new places. Again, all non-fiction type topics rather than stories about people doing things for one another and navigating challenges between themselves!

3