What is it about a book, play or film that motivates one to cease acting on one's own survival instinct for a period of entertainment? This question was answered partially by the PBS series on "Mirror Neurons." To quickly summarize, some of the same parts of the brain are used when we do something and when we watch others do things.
Reading triggers the imagination in the same way. We have the unique ability to use symbols, letters and numbers, to stimulate images and then stimulate those images into actions purely in our mind.
So, what's so compelling?
One's own fantasies of happiness portrayed by others? One's own ideal emotional transactions carried out to desired conclusions by others? Basically, someone or something showing us what we want to see. What do we want to see?
Children seek expressions of stability, peace, community, comfort, safety, abundance among other things. Basically, visualizations of satiation.
As we grow up we become compelled to see more complex expressions of satiation, such as mere hints or implied expressions of sexuality, control over situations not normally controllable, victory and dominance.
Depending on who we want as an audience or customer, we can distill these expressions from simplistic to extremely abstract.
More later.
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