Comment on Downtown Vancouver Library & Book Store Trip by Mr. J
Hi Lyle – excellent post! In addition to carrying on the TALONS collective noun – “gossip” – I can appreciate the benefit of experience in the life of a writer. The ability to share one’s experience as a story is something that may help us live peacefully with one another:
“Earlier this month, a research paper was published in the journal Science which put forward evidence that social skills are improved by the reading of fiction—and specifically the high-end stuff: the 19th-century Russians, the European modernists, the contemporary prestige names. The experiment, conducted by psychologists Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd, found that the subjects who read extracts from literary novels, and then immediately afterward took tests measuring empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence (looking at photos of people’s eyes and guessing what emotions they might be going through), performed significantly better on the tests than other subjects who read serious nonfiction or genre fiction. Their basic finding was that reading literary fiction, and literary fiction alone, temporarily enhances what’s known as Theory of Mind—the ability to imagine and understand the mental states of others.”
(From this Slate article: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/10/does_reading_fiction_make_you_a_more_empathic_better_person.html)
I’m also grateful for having Googled the word “sonder,” which I doubt I’ve heard before. From Urban Dictionary (to save future readers the trouble…. ooh, *sonder*):
“Briefly, the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”
Is it any wonder many authors (and plenty of other creative types) have chosen urban environments to make their homes? How do you think this type of experience differs from one where an author might seek out solitude to engage his or her creativity?
Thanks for a great reflection on the day (and a few of my pics)!
Mr. J
