See I've been working towards why I care about literature, what drives me to read and purposeful discussion / analysis thereafter. I have a firmer grasp on why these days, I think -- and it's not purely unselfish. I would never pretend to be purely unselfish. Modesty is a nice personality trait but it's hard to imagine anyone who exists completely devoted to that ideal -- and if they do it's hard to imagine it's not for some hope that they live in the esteem of others for upholding that ideal. I could be wrong, but I think it's contrary to our programming to be unequivocally modest, especially from a purely biological standpoint. Instead, I think humans are meant to be dichotomous, one part living for others and the community at large, and another part living for themselves and their own individual (i.e. apart from the lives and livelihood of even their nuclear family) sustentation.
It's what allows us, possibly, to contain the multitudes Walt Whitman writes of in the poem, "Song of Myself." We are large, as Whitman also writes, and we are complex beings, so although it complicates our lives, our lives are gray and filled with questions not easily answered with yes or no. But I'm not writing of that as a disparagement of the human condition; I could, so could you, but I will take a stand here -- decide, if you will -- to view it as a positive. You don't have to agree, and in fact I encourage your dissension.
If this is beginning to sound like a Reader's Manifesto that's because maybe it is.
