The statement that one whom reads without doing is missing out on life is, to me, profoundly absurd. There are many things which I have done in my life, of that there is no doubt. I've gone all across the country in a car, I have climbed the mountain with the highest recorded wind speed from a surface station (Mount Washington, NH), I have experimented with mind-altering substances, I have driven a train and soared 75ft through the air with no more than a hi-tech piece of wood strapped to my feet. However, none of this exceeds the experiences I've had in books. I have lived in worlds where people are created in test tubes with varying levels of brain function to keep them satisfied in their social situations and they don't know romantic love, where the population is kept at bay via a drug induced emotional coma (Brave New World, Aldous Huxley). I have thumbed my way 'cross country with Sal Paradise and met some very interesting people along the way (On the Road, Jack Kerouac). My point is that while the things one may experience in "real" life are tangible, physical occurrences of their being- those achieved in literature can be richer. Richer in the sense that I will probably never get to thumb my way across country and I am most certain that I will never know the oddities of residing in a land where love is seen as madness and people are bred to certain mental capacities. Books are our portals to different worlds, they are an escape from "real" life, and are, therefore, that much better.
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