Fiction is healing
I've had the winter blues. Only in my case they seem to be the winter blacks. Even though I'm living someplace was ample sunshine, I still think I get Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. A psychiatrist-friend of mine told me that was impossible, but I swear every February I sink into a nearly unrecoverable funk! It feels like a black shroud of self-doubt, un-motivation, depression, lethargy, weight gain hangs over my head and I can't shake it. But I have found something that helps. Reading fiction. Back in the ole college days, I took a class titled "Communication in Fiction." (Aren't you jealous? What a great class! I mean I got college credit talking about books!) It's more than escapism. I know a lot of people who poo-poo the value of fiction as something we need. I disagree. Fiction is a life blood. My professor theorized that we actually need to read fiction. During the time we read, fiction specifically, we meet a problem and have