And these days, we can do with as much civility as possible. All of which represent to me wonderful examples of civilized behavior. But the rational nature of the acts of reading and writing is not enough. As a writer of fiction, I would add another layer of significance to these acts. I've sensed this to be true for a long time, first as a reader of stories, later as a writer of stories.
Stories have the potential to be the catalysts of powerful meanings.
Stories can become analogues of what we cannot know directly, but can only contemplate indirectly as metaphor. Campbell goes so far as to suggest that most of human experience can be encapsulated into a single story. It is at the core of Huckleberry Finn and it is at the core of Robert Lipsyte's The Contender and it is at the core of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. It's the story of an adventure in which the hero or heroine is continually subjected to obstacles which test his or her ability to survive, to learn, to grow. The end result of the adventure is often transformation.