Taught By Fiction

"Life Taught By Books"

No one taught me the real world. Not with clear words. Not with careful hands.

What I know—what I carry—I learned from fiction.

People around me spoke vaguely. “Be careful.” “Don’t trust so easily.” “Life is hard.” Their advice floated like dust in sunlight—visible, but weightless. My parents said some things, sure. A few warnings here and there, their voices serious but shallow. They meant well, but their words never dug deep enough to plant roots. They were like surface scratches on glass—seen but not felt.

So I turned to stories. I didn’t plan to. I was simply curious. I read, and the worlds opened. And in those fictional worlds, I found everything no one had dared to say.

In that one particular story, I saw people scheme each other in layers I hadn’t imagined before. Husbands and wives pretending love, only to stab with words behind doors. Children smiling with hidden eyes. Superiors plotting against the ones beneath them. Every relationship a battlefield, every smile possibly a mask. And for the first time, my heart didn’t just read—it reacted.

I remember closing that story and feeling cold. Tired. A shadow lingered in me.

It shocked me. I sat for a long time, staring at nothing, wondering: Is this what the world truly is? Is every kindness a calculation?

That story left a mark. Not just in my thoughts, but in my instincts. Since then, I started watching differently. I stopped trusting so fast. I began to notice pauses between words, the edges behind smiles. I quietly accepted that most people give something only if there’s something to gain. That love, even love, might come with a price tag.

But fiction didn’t only teach me darkness. It taught me to survive in it.

I learned to weigh the meat in my mouth—who gave it, why, and what it might cost. I learned that being schemed against wasn’t the worst thing, as long as the price I paid was something I could bear. I learned to check pros and cons. To protect what little of myself still felt soft.

Fiction didn’t teach me through lectures. It taught me through scars. Through characters who stumbled, fell, and got up with eyes a little colder but still open. Through betrayals that hurt more than real life, because they were written so close to the bone.

The strange thing is… I never talked about it. Not to anyone. All of it remained in me as instinct, moving silently like breath. I didn’t realize how much I had learned until I began to write it down. Like now. Talking to you.

When I write, my instincts become sentences. My shadows take shape. And the things that haunted me in silence begin to make sense. They no longer just hurt—they mean something.

Fiction was never just a way to escape. It was how I saw the world clearly, for the first time. Where adults failed to prepare me, books did. They showed me the sharpness behind love, the loneliness beneath power, the cost of being soft. But they also showed me that even in a world of schemes, there are still people who act from warmth.

Some stories had characters who gave with no return. Who lit fires on cold nights for strangers. Who didn’t always win, but stayed kind anyway. They were rare. But real. And I believed in them.

I still do.

Because sometimes, even now, I meet people who remind me of those characters. Quiet ones. Gentle ones. Not perfect, not saints. But real. They don’t ask for much. They don’t feed me to bind me. And even if I hesitate, even if I don’t trust right away, something inside me says—stay close. Just in case they’re real.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll become one of them too.

Because fiction didn’t just teach me to guard my heart. It also taught me to guard others, when they can’t guard themselves. To listen when no one else does. To speak the words I once needed to hear.

So if you ask me who raised me—yes, my parents gave me food and rules. But fiction raised my soul.

And sometimes, that’s enough.