The most interesting lives we live are the ones we never lived

"Why do you read?" someone asked me this question three months ago. At first I didn't have an answer—a coherent one. I responded, "Because I just do." I could tell that my reply left them perplexed, subtly studying me as I pinned my attention back to the book I was reading.

Song of the day: Burning by Tems

Then I saw a quote on Pinterest:

The most interesting lives we live are the imaginary ones.

I read this quote, staring at my screen for a while, then I remembered their question: Why do you read?

Everyone is taught to follow the same script, same storyline. Chase the job that pays the bills, choose the college major that's sure to get you a job in your field. Chase the three-story manor off stateside, with your ponies and Cadillacs. We assess a well-lived life by the physical impressions of the thing we've named and built.

Why do we read?

The same reason we listen to music. To imagine, to create, to embrace the boundless realm of our fancy. When we imagine, we create a new version of our reality. Our imaginations let us live different lives, different tales—how we want our stories to go and how we want them to be told.

For me, every time I listen to music, I am granted the liberty of living the life of a new character—a hairdresser, a dancer, a singer, an artist, a musician, a doctor, a writer, a stripper, a seamstress, an archeologist, even Marilyn Monroe. I can be anything I want, anything and everything I wish to be, and the most amazing part: being the director of your own film, writing your own scripts and how you want your story to go without the heavy weight of life fucking you over and going off script.

When I think back to that quote, I realize that the most dramatically complex lives we live are not the ones we see on an aesthetic Pinterest mood board, but the ones forged in the cathedrals of our minds.

Long before we board that shabby white bus with chipped paint, going to Gwagwalada, we've already experienced the journey. Before we say "I do" on that altar, we've already lived a hundred marriages—the successful ones and the failed ones. Before we encounter a crisis, we've already lived it and survived it. Our imaginary life is not just an escape from reality, it is a rehearsal space, a laboratory, an archipelago of our existence.

I think about the quiet moments when I sit in the taxi, eyes fixed on the evidence of the sky's anguish, decorating Windọ ahụ. To the outside world I am nothing but a still portrait, but internally, I am fighting alongside Marvel superheroes against an alien invasion threatening to wipe out humanity, or delivering a eulogy that brings a whole stadium to tears, or walking away from a lover in a Parisian downpour with a resolution I do not possess.

Every time we open a book, we don't just see a page with words—we open a door into a new world created for us. We live alongside these characters, adopting one of our own; we experience the grief, the yearning, the pain, the love, the happiness, the sadness, all from the sanctuary of our homes—laying on your bed, sitting on the couch, sitting next to the window on the bus or the train—wherever we want to be.

The beauty of our imaginary lives is the lack of consequence. In reality, we are held down by the weight of failure and disappointment. We choose the safe job, the safe college major, the safest dreams because the cost of a mistake is too damn high. But in our imagination, we can be the villain who makes a compelling defense. We can be the hero who fails spectacularly and never learns from it.

These mental explorations are not dumb or frivolous; it's how we build our own characters. When we imagine ourselves as braver, we find the courage to take small steps toward courage in the real world. When we imagine ourselves as broken, we immunize against the shock of real sorrows.

So, imagine, dream, let it be grand, let it be absurd, let it be tragic. Because while the world demands us to show up and survive, the universe we've built in our mind demands only that we show up and be free.

This is why we read, and this is why we imagine—to live without the harsh judgement of reality weighing down on us.

That's my answer—it's coming three months too late, but it's one nonetheless.

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