Reading for Pleasure: A "Visit" or an "Escape"?

     Why do I prefer to call reading for pleasure a "visit" rather than an "escape"?
     Reading stories of various kinds is one of my favorite pastimes. But, when I first encountered the notion of reading for pleasure as "an escape" from everyday life, I recoiled from it with an inexplicable distaste. Gradually as I matured, I began to understand why I felt an aversion to the notion.
     Though I derive satisfying pleasure from reading stories, I have come to comprehend a truth that I have known vaguely since childhood. The purpose of reading stories is not merely for pleasure, but also to absorb truth, to ponder the truth as it enters the mind, and thereby to gain understanding and wisdom. To me, to read stories solely to escape into a pleasure land counters this purpose, and hampers one from fully experiencing all the enjoyment that can be derived from and through stories.
     The notion of reading as "an escape" also hints to me that life is a drudgery, and that pleasurable reading is a "drug" to alleviate the tedium of ordinary life. But the very fact that one chooses to live daily life despite routine elevates living from drudgery to a heroic struggle. Combined with the extraordinary events that happen to all, an exciting, intriguing picture of ordinary life emerges, if one wills to see it.
     A by product of the notion that life is drudgery could be that the fictional worlds in stories are sometimes viewed as more thrilling or enjoyable than reality. But from whence came the stories? The authors did not conjure them from nothingness, but from reality, either directly or from reflections of it, and they compiled that reality into new forms. This refashioning of reality touches the reader most deeply when it points to truth because it reflects a reality they subconsciously know to exist, or that ought to be.
     Thus, stories are meant to be an experience, not of escape from reality, but of enduring truths. These truths are conveyed in stories through common human actions, thoughts, and emotions. Though reading, enjoying, and pondering stories, the reader experiences these truths, and comes to a deeper understanding of human nature and the world.