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Delusional Me on The World Book Day

This week, I traveled through the wilderness in grief and found healing. Last week, I experienced the joy of being the world’s table tennis Olympic gold medalist. The week before that, I studied the different tribal practices around the world that made up the civilization as we know it today.

Who am I?

I am either a psychotic delusional person … or someone who reads books.

I am not sure there is a difference between the two. Being a reader does feel like being a high-functioning delusional person, because when you read, it is more than absorbing information or facts. It is about getting lost in a different perspective. It is about getting into another world. It is about letting all of your sensory experiences be swept along by what the character in the book experiences. It is about empathy.

Psychologist David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano at the new School for Social Research, in a series of five experiments involving 1,000 participants, proved that people who read literary fiction have better ability to identify emotions in others.

When we read, our brains experience the events in the book as if we genuinely experience them. In 2014, researchers at Carnegie Mellon used fMRI to try to map brain activities of people reading Harry Potter. They found that when people read about Harry’s first flying lesson, they actually experienced the feeling of disbelief of seeing a person fly in their brains.

A cognitive scientists from France proved that when we read about physical activity such as kicking or grasping, the region in the brain related to the motor cortex related to that action lights up in the fMRI. We genuinely feel like we are kicking or grasping.

I guess it is not really surprising. When reading, you are not really listening to a story. You are being conditioned to experience that story. Take Tolkien’s book for example: in the beginning, a significant portion of the book is spent trying to describe what the world is like, what the people look like, what their livelihood is like – perhaps more than the story of the adventure itself. It goes beyond telling you what Shire looks like. It takes you to Shire. It makes you believe that you are there.

When you read a good book, you do not jump into the plot straightaway. You spend around the first 30 pages getting to know the characters and the situation, the next 30 pages growing fond of them, the next 30 pages empathizing with them and the rest of the book being them. You experience the sense of urgency that they feel. You cry when they are in pain, and you feel triumphant when they are successful in their journey.

Many psychologists and neuro-scientists conclude that reading improves the Theory of Mind (also known as ToM), which is defined as: “The ability to attribute mental states – beliefs, intents, desires, pretending knowledge, etc. – to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions and perspectives that are different from one’s own.”

In the world with so many dissents, differences, prejudices, judgments and conflicts, where empathy has become a scarce resource, the Theory of Mind is something we need more of. Understanding others is what we need more of.

And here is how life is such a full circle: as we start to understand others, we start to understand ourselves, too.

When I read “Manusia Bumi”, as I started to understand Minke’s hatred to Javanese culture, I came to understand my frustration to my own culture. As I understood his admiration to the Dutch’s enlightened thinking, I understood my fascination to western philosophies. As I learned his pain in knowing that the Dutch people that he admires is the oppressors, I learned to separate the utopian western thoughts with the current imperialism. As he comes to terms to being a Dutch-educated Indonesian, I come to terms to being called an “oreo” (“white on the inside”). I spent the rest of the Buru Quartet thinking, as I experience Minke’s struggles in colonial times, what my role is in this fight against injustice in post-colonial context.

When I read “Gone with the Wind”, as I came to understand Scarlett more, I got to see the Scarlett in me. I understood that I, too, have my Ashley, the desire I fixated on but not one I really need; I, too, have my Rhett, the one I have taken for granted; and I, too, have my Tara, the one that gives me strength and the one for me to protect.

When I read “Where’d You Go Bernadette?”, as I understood how Bernadette lost her identity in the routines; I asked myself, “am I still here?”, “Where’d Melany go?” Has Melany lost herself, replaced by a woman who has become comfortable in her own routines?

When I read Adultery, I wondered if I am, too, faking my happiness because everything seems okay – and do I read books to “cheat” from my life?

It is ironic: I read books to be delusional and to escape reality, but I end up understanding reality more – others and mine. The name of the game is empathy. How do you play it? Read books.

By: Melany Tedja
Environmental Finance Consultant
Favorite Books: “Manusia Bumi” and “Gone with the Wind”

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