Library of Lives

What if there was a universe that was just an endless library filled with countless shelves and an infinite collection of books? Imagine it. The shelves line the walls and every door leads to another room with more books, every staircase leads to another floor full of books, no matter where you go you are bound to the books. Now, what would happen if such were to happen, and the intelligent inhabitants of his boundless library universe were to spend each day, every day, their entire lives reading these books, for they have nothing else to do? This vast library filled with only fiction, and it will be their only source of entertainment or activity their whole lives. They are not born but they appear out of thin air to exist. They don’t need to eat and they live each up to eighty years old. When they die they are thrown in this bottomless pit at the centre of the library, where they must fall for eternity. 

I suppose I should explain the structure of the library. It’s an endless tower of circular floors with hallways that lead into endless rooms with books. As I said, the centre of it all houses a massive pillar that goes infinitely up and down where all you can see is darkness in each direction. The bodies are thrown over the railings of each floor into this pit and no one ever sees them again or knows where they go. The inhabitants of the library, let’s call them readers, occasionally see them for a fleeting moment when one comes from above, passing by their floor in a second. The architectural design of the library is old-fashioned mahogany wood with dim lampshades for light, giving the universe an ancient and aristocratic feel. Other than that, the library itself isn’t what’s too important so we can move on.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Haven’t we heard all this before? Isn’t this similar to a different library we already know and love? Well, sort of. It’s similar in many ways but the implications are different. One creates a thought experiment about what it would mean to have a place containing every truth and every lie, and the other, this library, is about the people itself, and the fiction. What do I mean? Well, what would happen to the readers if they burrowed themselves deep into the escapism of fiction their entire lives, without ever getting to experience the things they read about in the books? Love, journeying, good vs evil, the world--all of these and more that they’ll never get to have themselves (the readers cannot feel love. In fact, they cannot feel anything. They do not interact with each other at all, they actually stay away from each other, mind their own business, and are happy with their own little worlds). But, the idea is they can gain as much of a superficial understanding of those things as they want. They can read all about them in their fiction. The question is, if they learn enough about something, will experiencing it be any different? Quite similar to the Mary’s Room thought experiment, I’d say. 

Will these readers feel any true pleasure from reading a scene about sex? Will these readers feel any true fear from reading a horror story? If you are quick to say no, let me halt you right there. It’s true that reading will never be the same as being in the main character’s shoes of the story, but then why is it possible to feel emotions from books? Why can we get pleasure, feel fear as we run from a monster with the characters, feel love from a character, feel pain when a character dies, and dream about the characters? How can reading words on a page affect us so much in real life if it’s true that they don’t have the power to be our lives? Well, can they be?

What will happen to the readers when they turn twenty? Fifty? Eighty? Will we consider them wise after having read possibly thousands of books (they will read nonstop their entire lives), even if they haven’t had a single real-life experience that the fiction they have read depicts? How will they diverge from us? Where would we find the similarities between us, and them? Can we call them humans? Can we say they’re the same as us?

What if they get suicidal, deciding to throw themselves off the railings into the bottomless pit themselves to allow starvation to take them first? What would they be depressed at? The reality of their lives and how they live, the worthlessness of it, or the fictional scenarios or philosophical ideas from the books they read that get put into their heads? Every day these readers will wake up, read books from the library, and sleep. Well, let’s just say there are days, since there is no sun. Will they turn insane, or will they have enough of an understanding about humanity from the fiction they read to remain, well, human? No, not remain. Become human. For they start out as hollow husks until the experiences of the world shape them into who they are, just like us. And the only experiences of the world they get are the experiences of the characters they read about. Will they become their characters? Or does it depend on the fiction they read? If it’s good enough to generalize the characters as timeless role models for all of them so that they become prime examples of human beings? 

I could go on and on about the endless implications of this library. But we’ll have to cut it short. My point is, maybe we do it already. Right now. Maybe some of us depend on some sort of escapism to replace our real lives. Whether it be books, movies, shows, comics, games, the news, or any form of media, really. We’re obsessed with it. We might be living in this library universe already, being the first humans in history to be able to live a hundred lives in our one lifetimes. Well, that’s truly something, isn’t it?

Should we tell people to live our lives present in the moment, and not in fiction? Or should we all just read books till the end of time to fully live them the best we can? Is it possible for fiction to have the power to replace our lives?

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