Why We Need Books, Even Our Own

This week has been a tough week up here in Boston, Massachusetts. Working just blocks from the bomb site, watching the tragedies unfold on the news, and then being told to stay in our homes, this week has been like no other. And many of us will continue to feel the effects of the

People say times like these remind you of what is important. I would definitely agree that this week has reminded me. But in addition to the importance of relationships and living our life fully, this week has also reminded me just how important books are. Just how much I need them, and how much we all need them.

Because our world so often leads us into hard, scary, trying situations, I know that for many people books provide a place of shelter. A refuge from daily life, even when life is going so tremendously well. Not all books are happy or easy to read, and they are not meant to be. But books provide the reader with a new experience of the world. They let you slip into another skin, leaving the constraints of your own life behind. They stretch the limits of the self as you experience life through another’s eyes — in another time, another world, another perspective, another worldview. They comfort you. They teach you about others. They teach you about you. They give you a quiet, intimate, connect experience in a way that other mediums cannot. They let you be whoever you want to be. And they embrace you, as a participant, important to the shared transaction between reader and text.

I’m not saying that books will heal all wounds. And I don’t think that books are the only things that matter. Because, honestly, I believe in people, and the need for relationships. I believe that conversations and interactions often do more than anything else can. But I also believe that quiet time, reflection, and new experiences add to the quality of our lives. And books provide all of these. They shelter us in their pages, and they challenge us, each and every time. They help us in hard times, and make good times even better.

So as writers, I think this week provides an important take away. It reminds us of something we’ve known all along but sometimes forget in the busyness of life, and even in the hope of writing a good book. And that is this:

Write what you want to put out into the world. Write what you want to the world to know, what you want the world to feel. Write what you need to write, for the good of your own soul.

By this, I don’t mean writing didactic books that instruct and scold, or even creating emotional elegies of what is or what was or what you’d like the future to hold. But writing something that you want to put out into this world. Something that can potentially last beyond you. A text that conveys your bit of hope for yourself, and for others. The life lesson that you want to offer, or the emotion you want to share, or that tidbit of wisdom that you’ve gained from your experiences.

We never quite know what tomorrow holds. But one thing I know is I want to put something good into this world. Something that will help others to cope or escape or laugh or feel. Something that I might need myself.