Why should we put our heads around literature & fiction for our long-term well-being?
An honest take from my personal experiences.
The first quarter of 2020 was a critical time for me. After six years of working in hospitality, I returned to India, and the whole industry had come to stall. I had a goal, and there were opportunities, and I was upskilling myself, yet nothing mattered to the market. So, I did what I could. I took a job that served my needs at the time. I started working as social media and recruiting associate with a startup. And if I could remember it, it was when I started writing on Medium.com. And to this day, I feel grateful for that opportunity and am happy to sustain through the pandemic without losing much energy.
At the time, I was new to writing and still am. I worked as a freelance social media guide for a couple of months, creating content and setting up pages across the social and later moved into recruiting as it was the core of the organization I was working with. As a social media guy new in the country, I had to stay curious about the platforms and content that work for the organization. I was reading books and interacting with social media consultants from different companies to upskill myself. And in late 2020, during my research, I came across a blog from “TED.”
I followed TED for almost a decade, reading blogs and listening to the talks. I found the information interesting, thoughtful, and usable. Now, the blog I read was about literature and fiction. I barely got through my graduation in computer science, worked in hospitality for almost six years, and literature was never my learned skill. I was curious about storytelling as a marketing tact. But I never approached it through academic knowledge. Fiction, literature, and storytelling weren’t the skills I prepared. However, that blog I read on TED that day completely changed my course of action for the last two years.
The blog concluded that fiction is suitable for people’s mental health. I wholeheartedly wanted to do something about it. One way to contribute was by telling fictitious stories yet so real in 2022. I chose the theme. A little girl and her pet. And their journey to become social media influencers. I am convinced that I want to tell this story and the characters I chose were from Ireland, where I lived and worked for six years for most of my professional career. To keep it simple, during my stay in Ireland, I have had the opportunity to attend events that are deeply rooted in art & culture. I worked in the food business, which helped me to interact with people who were at least 30 years older than me, and at the same time, at least 15 years younger than me, a diverse demographic. And I was fortunate to meet founders, entrepreneurs, and operators who were into art — especially a CEO who comes from theatre art & also the most futuristic technology domain. I made quite a few good friends over there who are into art.
I think Ireland is one such country that’s deeply rooted in poetry & and also competing in today’s technology evolution. And that led me to get into fiction, write stories and independently publish my first storybook. There are other things too that inspired me to write a novel. I ended up with a conclusion to write something that could help someone understand the good aspects of social media and the people who are celebrating the success of it and success. As a millennial, my most important researched topic was social media and Gen-Z. I chose the platform Wattpad knowing that most consumers out there fall under the same demography. My journey as an author was lively.
My storybook was trending at the top for a while on Wattpad. I was able to participate in a competition and have a conversation with fellow writers. Finally, I could tap into my fascination to become a writer and collaborate with people across the globe. Sometimes it was for editing or the artwork or inspiration. It was super satisfying for the wannabe writer in me. I mentioned somewhere on social that writing this storybook made me feel like a protagonist in real life.
Now, let’s talk about fiction.
From my own experience, reading fiction and indulging myself in literature taught me a few things. First, it made me feel we are not acting like protagonists in real life, at least myself. Whether watching a movie, or a documentary, we all love it when the good guy beats the bad guy and the protagonist saves another human being from evil. We love it when the supermans & spidermans fight and destroy evil & even in YouTube videos; we love it when people help a homeless person; we love it when someone pays for an older person in the grocery store. We are prone to put ourselves in the protagonist’s shoes most of the time. However, in reality, I don’t think we are acting on it.
We all have bills to pay, aspirations to chase, families to feed and, we are all competing, we are competing to get what is ours, and somehow during the process, I believe that we are somewhat losing our human side. We are trading our humanity for more cash, comfort, and luxury. That’s where fiction comes in handy for the welfare of human kinds. Let me clarify: I love competition and grew up being a notorious cricket fan. Even when playing against friends and cousins, I enjoyed the competition; I always went for the W. There were heated arguments, and we did not talk with each other for days over the game. I am 100% for the competition; it’s adrenaline, the thrill. Still to this day, I love a good match. I mentioned good because today, we compete to the extent that we forget to care about others.
As someone who’s living in 2022, I feel like we are lacking love and kindness. And the fiction makes me believe that we can only win in life with love and compassion more than with hate & fear. There is a great need for all of us to lead with love & kindness rather than to lead with fear and hate hatred is possible to lead and win in life for the greater good. Literature plays a significant role in shaping ourselves, whether poetry or novels; I believe the more we indulge ourselves in it, the better human beings we become.
Talking about literature, I will say one thing confidently. Without literature, there are very few chances for us to understand each other, our culture, and today’s reality. I believe literature is the epitome of human evolution; we are leaving future generations the pathway, learning our ancient methodologies, and building ourselves to become better with it every day. Unfortunately, in a world where the youth are chasing custom-made ancient practices, there is a higher possibility of failing to receive the significant results they promise. I don’t blame people or institutions that appreciate beer, disco, or hot yoga. Still, we must understand that ancient yoga is far more beneficial and immensely superior.
And you can only gain knowledge from the literature. Be it about becoming a better businessman, an athlete, and even better human being. So many people decided to leave all these influential writings for us to live a better life. I think we are overvaluing our time and overestimating what we are up to. If you aren’t into literature, your time will become unworthy, unrealistic, and unbelievably disappointing. So, it’s time for us to go through the books we want, only for our betterment. If you are not into literature, there will be fewer opportunities to grow healthy, kind, and skillful. Without literature, we will lose opportunities and the potential to become the most excellent version of ourselves. Moreover, literature teaches us empathy & without empathy, we are only heading toward destruction.
And the way I see it is that learning programming is incredible. Learning how to operate a machine that will help us is super awesome. Yet, if you aren’t leaning into history, ancient mythology, and fiction, you will be far off from being able to understand the human in front of you. So how could we ignore the most precious machine we all have, which helps us every second, our body and mind?
Literature influences us to appreciate the good in others and the interest in ourselves. Overall, as human beings, we need each other to overcome challenges and live a truly blessed life. So if I have to recommend a book, I will tell you to start reading the sacred texts from your religion. Start there, and I believe they will teach you all you got to know about the history and the fundamental thought process for thinking about what is good and evil. I am not talking about the way you consume it and the vehicle through which you do it. You could listen to your parents tell you a story, you could go and buy that sacred book, or you could listen to a podcast episode, or even a YouTube video from a peer-reviewed publication can come in handy.
If I have learned anything from reading and writing, fiction or literature, it is that we all are prone to making mistakes. We all are prone to believing our own experiences and are apt to become stubborn and heavy-headed. So, we must ground ourselves consistently on different levels, and we can do it by falling in love with fiction and literature.
