Fiction

I am filling my life with fiction.

This is not my typical approach. I am a bit of a snob. I prefer to read challenging books; literature, books that examine specific topics or points of view, highbrow authors with hi falutin' and intellectual opinions.

I go to easy reading fiction as an escape, as a way to rest my brain and I enjoy it tremendously. It does feel good to let your muscles relax and just go with the flow once in a while.

They sell books where I work. $2 for hardcover, $1 for paperbacks.

How the hell can I pass that up? So I browse that section regularly and keep picking up books. I have nine books in queue right now, which is a lot even for me.

Most of them easy reading fiction.

I was thinking about the role of fiction in my life this morning and it got me off on a different, deeper tangent.

The fiction of out lives.

The vast majority of humans are living a fictitious existence.

Unless you are working a job that you love, that speaks to your soul, unless you are living in direct vibration with your principles and beliefs and those aspects of your personality that make you exactly who you are - you are living in fiction.

And you probably don't know it. You probably don't see it that way.

Because you are numb, which is a condition that life creates through the daily beat-down, or because you are one of those suck it up type people.

I have no use for suck it up type people. They usually have no imagination; no sense of humor.

These are the people who say "that's the way life is - just suck it up."

I prefer to be a dreamer. I prefer to believe that the option to improve and dramatically change my life exists until moist earth hits the coffin lid. I prefer to believe that I am not the person my life choices have created superficially.

I prefer to believe that I am the person who lives under the surface, the natural inhabitant of my heart and my soul.

But I digress.

Maybe those of us who read ( non of whom are Trump supporters) do it to escape from our own fiction to a better one. Or, if you read darker stuff, maybe you do it to make your own fiction appear better by way of comparison.

Fiction has its place. It can be delicious.

When I read Jack Reacher novels, written by Lee Child, I want to be Jack Reacher. I yearn to be him.

I want to be that guy who is so smart he can never lose, so tough he cannot be defeated no matter the situation.

When I read Dave Robicheaux novels, written by James Lee Burke, I long to be Dave Robicheaux. A deeply flawed reformed alcoholic who is tough, smart and unbeatable. And he is a guy who lives and works in New Orleans, which is a place I could love (although I am not as sure as I was before this unbearable heat wave we have been suffering.)

So fiction tastes really good.

The fiction of our lives, however, is a tragedy.