Belonging

I wonder how many times we like books only because we associate with the characters, because we understand them and their emotions. It seems as though some of the favorites that we keep coming back to again and again are the very same ones that have characters who are like us, individuals who we can associate with and feel close to.

It's almost like in reading a book with characters like that we find someone else to associate with. Or perhaps it is because we find ourselves again. With each action, each thought spelled out on the page, every desire, passion, fear, we find ourselves studying the person we think ourselves to be. And that concept seems to enraptures us.

We want to know about ourselves, we want to see how we'd react in situations we're not in. And in a way, books with characters like us let us live a little bit, let us take risks and face consequences...without really endangering ourselves in real life. It's when we read books like this, primarily, that we get that thrill, the wild rush, feel the excitement...when the people we read about remind us of ourselves.

Alright, so I apologize right now. This past week, I've been doing a lot of writing, getting a lot of thoughts down, etc. But this post is really pretty damn bad, and I don't care enough to fix it. Partially I don't care because I feel that my well of inspiration may have temporarily run dry, and partially because I'm in the middle of a book I'm rather enjoying right now (hence the nature of this post), and would much rather go back to reading it and thinking about the characters than coming up with something to write about. So I sincerely apologize for the low quality of this post, but will hopefully make up for it at some point soon.

On a completely unrelated and totally irrelevant side note: I write based on those who follow, in a sense, more often than not...but occasionally I don't. Sometimes I reflect back only on myself or focus on things that may appear to have been forgotten years ago. I'm not about to write out a direct line of thinking here, and I'm not about to fully clarify a post that I previously wrote. But this is as close to an explanation as I will probably ever give...the hint is in the exception, which I guess sets this phrase as a riddle of its own. No further questions on the subject will be entertained. I don't know if I'm right or wrong to include this paragraph, but either way, I have...so be it.