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Isis kills 128 civilians in revenge
surprise counter-attack on Syrian town
$22 Bitcoin investments prison region
mint fortune Portugal forest fires three
days of mourning for 62 victims how do
you feel after hearing or reading these
headlines fear sadness boredom and
difference did you imagine yourself in
that fire did you imagine being a
refugee a surprise millionaire day by
day we are exposed to endless streams of
news updates information our brains are
busier than ever but how much of it
really impacts who we are how we feel
and what we do the impersonality of the
media can make us film u n-- online even
with the comments section at our
fingertips the world can feel very
one-dimensional we're looking for ways
to understand the world we live in and
develop our own story our own career so
reach out to nonfiction unsurprisingly
nonfiction books have been on the rise
in the past decade now fiction can offer
something new more knowledge on a
certain subject a life hack I also get
excited by titles like the innovators
dilemma start with why increase your
focus by the way how's everybody's
4-hour workweek going I like to think
I'm in control of my life just like you
are I go for a coffee go to work spend
time with friends and family and
sometimes I pick up a book it can be
nonfiction or fiction
usually nonfiction because that at least
offers me something straightforward and
in the meantime I read a lot more I read
my texts emails reviews long reads in
that sense it's not that we're not
reading its what we're reading how many
of you have read a book of fiction this
year and I'm in a work of literary
all right and I'm in a book of literary
fiction not popular fiction no bondage
love story about the color gray
literary fiction can usher us into other
worlds it can make a step into other
realities but we don't do this passively
we have to do the work reading books is
thought in action the joy of a single
tasking mind but there's another
important reward that is often left
behind and that's what I want to explore
with you today former President Obama
articulated it seamlessly in an
interview he said when I think about how
I understand my role as a citizen
setting aside being president and the
most important set of understandings
that I bring to that position of a
citizen the most important stuff I've
learned I think I've learned from novels
it has to do with empathy it has to do
with being comfortable with the notion
that the world is complicated and full
of grace but that they're still truth
they're to be found
empathy that word is buried about a lot
these days
empathy is the friendly enemy to our
feeling of self-importance storytelling
can help us to not only understand but
feel the complexity the emotions the
situations of distance others it can be
a vital antidote to the stress of all
the noise around us like meditation and
I will tell you a little bit about how
that works
last summer I borrowed the new Dave
Eggers book for my mom heroes of the
frontier Dave Eggers is one of my
favorite writers I like to cover so in
good spirits i sat down in my beach
chair the journey began to my own
surprise I didn't like the first hundred
pages I couldn't relate relate at all to
the main character Josey a 40-something
single mom from Ohio who quits her job
as a dentist and takes her kids to
Alaska to stay she didn't even bother to
tell her ex-husband she was leaving but
I stuck with it and towards the end
Josie and her kids are rushing through
the force desperate to make it back to
the civil civilized world rains pouring
they're all scratched and bloody from
running through the branches but finally
define an abandoned cabin where they can
sleep and they're so happy they're safe
now I'm not a very emotional person but
as I was reading this my eyes were
getting to well up I got very emotional
and I thought to myself what made me
change from not liking the book to being
so invested in it from indifference to
caring to deep emotion how did this
happen it happened because Eggers
artfully triggered my imagination by
describing her every motion he described
a scenery of Alaska as deeply as his
scenery of her thoughts the better I got
to know Josie the mark could relate to
her feelings and her actions just like
when you get to know somebody in your
life the more I got into the book the
more my mind started single tasking
scientists call this narrative immersion
transcending the here and now it reduces
externally focused attention there by
increasing deeper reflection what
happens is twofold but we mirror how we
would feel in the situation the main
characters in we also simulate their
mental state and imagine being them so I
was imagining how I would feel if I was
in Alaska
road-tripping with two children but at
the same time I was imagining how would
how it would feel to be Josie empathy
the human form of mind reading good
writers can create a storyline that
takes us by the hand and lets our
imagination do the rest like a fairy
tale as Albert Einstein said if you want
your kids to be intelligent read them
fairy tales if you want them to be very
intelligent read them more fairy tales
why because the slow pace of reading
allows us to pay attention to the
language the metaphors the complexities
it allows our creative imagination to
connect the dots and find the deeper
layers in another story in this time of
social networking self-absorption and
individualism some social scientists say
we are experiencing an epidemic of
narcissism an age of entitlement well
sometimes we yearn for pasts with
closely communities where everybody
looks out for each other what we're
doing is we're desperately searching for
answers
understand the world we live in now but
given the increasing complexity of our
world it's more important than ever that
we get out of our own on and offline
echo chambers and do everything to
understand the other and spark our
imagination literature searches and
poses questions it doesn't provide any
ready-made answers Obama mentioned a
certain truth that can be found through
literature this truth may be found in a
humanist that we're all aching for to
feel deeply connected literature as a
way of reminding us that the stranger is
not so strange
the ambition with which we turn to
non-fiction books we can also faster -
which literature this vintage art form a
life hack Ivana la lettre can enrich us
and change us from the inside out
narcissism is the dark side of
individualism fiction can help us to
disconnect from ourselves and tap into
an emotional and prosthetic side that we
don't often take the time to explore
something to think about this weekend
when you're passing by your local
bookstore thank you
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