In this day and age books are widespread, and movies and tv shows are everywhere. The fields of storytelling are vastly greater from what our ancestors had.

What is the point of books, movies, and tv shows of fictional stories anyways? They never happened. They aren’t real. So what is the point of them? Is there a point?

They’re just stories right? Made up, make-believe garbage? Right?
No. They might not be real, but that doesn’t mean they  don’t matter.
Just because something isn’t real, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

You might as well say all art is pointless. Because books, movies, and tv shows, are a form of art.

Books where an author can transport you to another world, to the point where you feel like you're there, to the point where you feel the breeze on your cheek as a character walks through a woods.

Movies and tv shows that make you believe dragons are really there, with music that will send chills down your spine.

This is all just another form of art. Stories are a form of art.
Art matters. Stories matter.

They matter because they can change us. Stories can touch people’s souls.

Stories can be our escape from reality. Stories can be our escape from the drudges of everyday life.
Stories can teach us things. Stories can teach us how to be better people.

They can teach us to be braver, kinder, wiser people. They can teach us to never give up, to face our fears.
Stories can even be a kind of therapy. Many stories have helped me through hard things in my life. They've helped me through grief.

And they can do all of this, because great stories touch our souls.
They can change people for the better, they can make us better people.
And people matter. People can change the world.

So by extension, if stories can make great, strong, people who can change the world, can’t stories change the world?
They might not be real, but they can have real world impacts.

And, like all art, they’re beautiful. One story might not be liked by someone, just like one painting might not be liked by someone.

But to another that same story or painting will be beautiful.

They fact that stories can do this is magical. It is magic.

So I ask you now, do you want go on an adventure? Or do you want to fall in love? Or learn how to use magic?
Then pick up a book, or watch a good movie, or turn to a great tv series.

Go someplace new, without going anywhere. Meet great people, people that technically don’t exist.

But every person you meet will teach you something new, not just about them, but about yourself.
And I promise you’ll be a better person for it.

So go dive into a story, and learn something about not just that world, but yourself.