Reading books can help you cope with the real world
it is so accurate to the sensation. You find yourself entirely inside the world of the book, oblivious even to your physical circumstances. Your bad knee stops aching, your cup of tea goes cold and – most excitingly – your anxieties evaporate. With great writers, every sentence somehow tips the reader into the next; each scene pulls the reader deeper into the thickets of the story. A door opens, and there is this glorious, momentary escape from self – this break from the ego-surfing, Facebook-checking, Instagram-posting world. Yes, other art offers the same escape, but reading may be the most potent pill; probably because it requires more from our imagination, as we picture the world in which these characters walk – filling-in as designer, authour, student,oncologist... And here is something hilarious: whenever we have this holiday from ego – with whichever art form – our various devices become unhappy: anxiously pinging andWhen I had too much reality I open book. . .
poking, insisting we return ourselves to the center of the picture. Why not rate the book you've just finished on Good Reads? Or discuss your favorite TV show while it's being broadcast using Twitter? Or take a photo of yourself queuing to see the Mona Lisa and post it on Instagram? How lovely to think: the less anxious we are, the more anxious are our devices. They are worried, I guess, that art is allowing us to free ourselves from their control.As my devices ping and trill and flash, I try to be sympathetic to their mounting panic :P ;)