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Love With
Ever finished a book? I mean, truly finished one? Cover to cover. Closed the spine with that slow
awakening that comes with reentering consciousness?
You take a breath, deep from the bottom of your lungs and sit there. Book in both hands, your
head staring down at the cover, back page or wall in front of you.
Youre grateful, thoughtful, pensive. You feel like a piece of you was just gained and lost. Youve
just experienced something deep, something intimate. (Maybe, erotic?) You just had an intense
and somewhat transient metamorphosis.
Like falling in love with a stranger you will never see again, you ache with the yearning and
sadness of an ended affair, but at the same time, feel satisfied. Full from the experience, the
connection, the richness that comes after digesting another soul. You feel fed, if only for a little
while.
This type of reading, according to TIME magazines Annie Murphy Paul, is called deep
reading, a practice that is soon to be extinct now that people are skimming more and reading
less.
Readers, like voicemail leavers and card writers, are now a dying breed, their numbers
decreasing with every GIF list and online tabloid.
The worst part about this looming extinction is that readers are proven to be nicer and smarter
than the average human, and maybe the only people worth falling in love with on this shallow
hell on earth.
According to both 2006 and 2009 studies published by Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York
University in Canada, and Keith Oatley, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of
Toronto, those who read fiction are capable of the most empathy and theory of mind, which is
the ability to hold opinions, beliefs and interests apart from their own.
They can entertain other ideas, without rejecting them and still retain their own. While this is
supposed to be an innate trait in all humans, it requires varying levels of social experiences to
bring into fruition and probably the reason your last partner was such a narcissist.
Did you ever see your ex with a book? Did you ever talk about books? If you didnt, maybe you
should think about changing your type.
Its no surprise that readers are better people. Having experienced someone elses life through
abstract eyes, theyve learned what its like to leave their bodies and see the world through other
frames of reference.
They have access to hundreds of souls, and the collected wisdom of all them. They have seen
things youll never understand and have experienced deaths of people youll never know.
Theyve learned what its like to be a woman, and a man. They know what its like to watch
someone suffer. They are wise beyond their years.
Another 2010 study by Mar reinforces this idea with results that prove the more stories children
have read to them, the keener their theory of mind. So while everyone thinks their kids are the
best, the ones who read have the edge as they truly are the wiser, more adaptable and
understanding children.
Because reading is something that molds you and adds to your character. Each triumph, lesson
and pivotal moment of the protagonist becomes your own.
Every ache, pain and harsh truth becomes yours to bear. Youve traveled with authors and
experienced the pain, sorrow and anguish they suffered while writing through it. Youve lived a
thousand lives and come back to learn from each of them.
If youre still looking for someone to complete you, to fill the void of your singly-healed heart,
look for the breed thats dying out. You will find them in coffee shops, parks and subways.
You will see them with backpacks, shoulder bags and suitcases. They will be inquisitive and
soulful, and you will know by the first few minutes of talking to them.
You should only fall in love with someone who can see your soul. It should be someone who has
reached inside you and holds those innermost parts of you no one could find before. It should be
someone who doesnt just know you, but wholly and completely understands you.
According to Psychologist David Comer Kidd, at the New School for Social Research, What
great writers do is to turn you into the writer. In literary fiction, the incompleteness of the
characters turns your mind to trying to understand the minds of others.
This is proved over and over again, the more people take to reading. Their ability to connect with
characters they havent met makes their understanding of the people around them much easier.
They have the capacity for empathy. They may not always agree with you, but they will try to
see things from your point of view.