How Fiction Makes You A Better Person:

It shows just how possible improbable things are, and reminds us that there is so much more than what we can immediately know. I think the value in being made to believe in improbable things, even if it's just momentary, disbelief suspended etc, is that it reminds you of one crucial fact: That just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. That's what locks people's minds down: their inability to suspect, or consider, or let's just say imagine things beyond what they have felt with their own fingers. Fiction makes you realize that there are scenarios where aliens from outer space can plausibly kidnap the president and replace him with a clone, there are logical causal sequences that can lead to this. And if you can see your way into imagining that, then you are probably less liable to dismiss strange things or strange people or strange events as just stupid without examining them. Because you now know that there is probably a way in which this oddity will make sense. So fiction makes you less likely to be a judgmental bastard.

The above represents the opinion of one of my friends which I subscribe to :-)...

Comments

Mother to Son...beautiful piece

A LETTER TO MY TWO YEAR OLD September 2, 2011 at 9:12 am by Pumla Nabachwa Every year, during the week of my children’s birthdays, i shall write them a letter and keep them in separate boxes and present them with these boxes the day they graduate. (& graduate they will) Today, I write a 2nd letter to my first born son…..now Trey Gateja……My pride…….My joy! My sunshine, It’s been 730 days & we’re both still alive………let alone sane. I’m not sure how I haven’t strangled you to death yet or left you out at night hoping that a hawk will grab you & take you far away from me. I’m quite perplexed that am not in a mental hospital, let alone 6 feet under. The doctors promised me that the pain stops immediately after the baby is delivered but nooooooooo…….we’re here today & I’m still pulling my hair out. Somebody once said; “it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you’ve had a baby”…… that somebody doesn’t know that once you’re a mother, ‘normal’ is his...

Great Expectations...

I refer, not to the well-loved Charles Dickens book but to the prospects, the eager anticipation that comes with committing to a person in a romantic relationship. I remember how incensing it was whenever John Doe told me he had no expectations of me and I, therefore, should not have any of him. 'Why can't you just go with the flow, Lynn!' he would cry. 'Why must you complicate things?!'...and consequently, I would walk away from such conversations feeling like the wicked witch of the west- the one who always screws things up. Contractual terms can be considered expectations, right? Par example; I hand over x million shillings, you hand over your car's keys... You pay y amount of shillings as rent, I let you live in my house, You pay me US $ z , I write a proposal for your organization...et cetera, et cetera... So, how, then, is it that when it comes to romantic relationships, people want to avoid the conversation about expectations like the pla...

Dad

Dear Dad, Today, nine years ago, you changed your major area code leaving many people pretty upset including uncle Kizza Besigye who I know would have appreciated your level of loyalty considering memories of my S.4 vacation driving around Kampala with you as you manually tallied the Reform Agenda's votes at different polling stations:) Just so you know, Uncle K.B. is hassling; what with pepper spray, kicks, blows, gun butt beatings, being shoved under the car seats of police men (who we are all quite convinced are paramilitary- but that's a story for another day), insults, threats to his life...etc...you would have frothed at the mouth seeing how bad things have become for political opponents of the 'Great 1986 Revolutionary'. Am sorry for putting such a lousy pic of you on the www but you hated pics so it's kinda your fault :) I cut my hair and decided I would like to keep it that way for the rest of my life...in fact, I am contemplating ...

EkiraboKyampaire

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