![]() ![]() We might come out of reading a work of fiction just that much more willing to believe that that guy over there is as real as we are, and a little more interested in how things seem to him. Out there, inside all of those other bodies, are consciousnesses who also think they are the only real consciousnesses. We aren’t stuck in us-or don’t have to be. The magical lesson is that our mind is a malleable, temporary thing. We imaginatively inhabit another person (the character) through the language of another person (the author), and yet it all feels real and vital-as if it’s happening to us. ![]() ![]() Reading fiction coaches us in understanding that this isn’t the case. When a person is walking around in a human body (as people tend to do, ha ha), it feels like whatever consciousness is arising is the only one. What does reading fiction have to do with empathy? I was a different person when I was done. She moved my mind into a hyper-compassionate state. Toni Morrison somehow reawakened that whole mindset in me-she reminded me that everyone and everything is sacred. ![]() The “alteration” had something to do with feeling an intense identification with the main character, which shot me right back to Catholic school, when I was feeling real empathy for and connection with everybody, inspired by what I imagined Jesus was all about. I remember reading The Bluest Eye for the first time, when our kids were little. ![]()
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