The Human Experience

"My personal hobbies are reading,

listening to music, and silence."

Edith Sitwell

Delving into fictional characters, I learn more about my own nature as a human being.  I listen for alliances and notice the stirrings of my heart.  As the story unfolds, I can hear a rhapsody growing between the hero and antagonist.  When the story is complete, I sit in silence to filter through whatever remains.

My imagination supplies each character with an unintended depth and my filtered perceptions cloud the images creating more mystery than intended.  Background music blocks out household and neighborhood noises adding to my reverie.  When I fall into the depths of a writing, it isn't necessarily a simple escape, as much as it is an expanding adventure.  

I can witness horror, beauty, violation, or humor while gathering emotional responses without impacting my body with harm.  I can gently close the graphic designed cover or read the book from front to finish again.  Whatever morsels I  gain eventually float to the surface of my memory, continuously deepening my sense of  life beyond the human experience.