Reading

I see a lot of quotes and pictures on reading saying that reading can help you stay away from reality or real life. I wonder if that's what reading do. Whatever you read be it fiction or non fiction, it comes from our experiences and feelings. I don't read books to run away from reality. Yes, I agree stories can be interesting, can take you to another world and make you forget for the time being about your own world. But even the happiest or fiction stories have lessons of life. The struggle, the love, the pain, the union, the victory, the togetherness, aren't these all part of our lives? When I read, I can experience someone else's pain or happiness, love or loneliness, union or abandonment, struggle or victory, shrewdness or inocence, gains or losses. Either I feel happy with them or sad with them. It can at times give me a parallel universe to live in. It opens up my mind to new possibilities and worlds. It keeps me to the ground teaching me that things are happening all around good or bad - you are not the only one and it helps in appreciating the goods of my life. It gives me new visions to my own life. I wouldn't say I read to run away from reality but to make my reality more real away from illusions.