My stomach churns giddily as worn pages fly before my eyes. This wooziness intensifies while I deliberately read on, posed in a fetal manner as if to be born again at the novel’s end. Hours pass and my spine crunches even more severely to lessen the distance between my eyes and Rowling’s words. Streetlights shine upon British tales of magic and mayhem until we come to darkened neighborhoods; then, I squint at darkened pages that refuse to divulge any more adventures. At first, I mope. My peaked anticipation struggles to cope with the book’s closed form, but within a few moments, my imagination conjures brooms in the sky outside the car’s window.
While I understand the difference between fiction and reality, I believe in choosing which is real. In houses where chestnuts roast, children await a particular surprise each year. We claim to revere the innocence of children, but every year, we allow them to give up their infant ideas of Christmas. The digital age respects facts and credibility, but in accepting a truth, we allow infinite falsehoods to die. Fiction contributes a precise beauty to humanity that cannot be found in textbooks or calculators.
Mankind builds a relationship with the world by developing ideas about how it is and how it should be. But no one can claim his perspective is true. Every idea is true and every idea is false. This perfects humanity; our greatest achievement is the individual falsehoods that add depth to an otherwise boring landscape of grasses and governments. I can decide to believe Harry Potter exists. I can see witches brewing potions and wizards summoning lost keyrings with “Accio keys!” By doing so, I preserve the strength and fragility of humanity: our belief in lies.
For every moment I live, there is exactly one coinciding moment of truth and an infinitesimal number of falsehoods. We find comfort in fiction, especially when truth may be difficult to understand or accept. To find relief in death, we conjure an idea of pearly gates and beckoning angels. The question of whether a supreme being exists is not scientific; it is personal. If you had to decide between a world with a god and a world without, which would you choose? In today’s selfish world, is it wrong to allow the spirit of pure selfishness to reside within a supernatural being living at the North Pole? Is there no magic in our Muggle minds?
I grew up with the young wizard, pouring over each new story and rereading his tales when the mood struck. My schools taught medicine, not potion, and I wrote essays on Microsoft Word, not parchment. Still I waited for the sacred acceptance letter upon my eleventh birthday. Any moment, Hagrid could break down my door and steal me away to a place where I feel accepted. I like to believe I am intelligent and rational, but I long for fiction. Every second of our lives has infinite possibilities. I choose to believe that the innumerable events that do not occur are just as valuable as the one instance that comes true.
