If our life story shapes our identity, then we have to include the lives we witness and the lives we imagine. George R. R. Martin once wrote, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” It feels true. Stories widen the edges of who we are.

Tony Hillerman captured this idea in a different way. Writing about Navajo traditions, he said that everything is connected. The wing of a corn beetle. The drift of sand. The light in a man’s eye as he looks at his reality. All of it part of a larger whole. In that totality, he said, a person finds hozro. A way of walking in harmony. A way of being surrounded by beauty.

When we learn about the human experiences of others, our own experience expands. Their struggles, their moments of clarity, their hopes, their mistakes, and even the stories of their endings. Each one shows us something about the shape of a life.

Authors become the gatekeepers to these lives. They carry their knowledge and pass it forward. They open doors for the rest of us.

Harold Bloom spent his career studying the great writers. In Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he argued that Shakespeare’s 22,000-word vocabulary and the depth of his writing reveal a near-complete understanding of humanness. Bloom believed Shakespeare didn’t just portray people. He helped define what it means to be human.

In a 1995 interview, Bloom said we must read Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, and the King James Bible. He believed their value was intellectual and spiritual. Not tied to doctrine. Not tied to institutions. They tell us things we couldn’t know on our own. They strengthen the mind. They make us more alive.

Bloom used the work of these authors to define humanness. Their stories became part of his own story.

Shakespeare’s lines still meet us where we are. A few that stay with me:

There is nothing good or bad. Only thinking makes it so.
Hell is empty, and the devils are here.
Though this may be madness, there is a method in it.
All that glitters is not gold.
To thine own self be true. Then you cannot be false to any man.

The meaning of life is bigger than our daily routines. It grows through the lives we read about. Hyenseo Lee’s memoir, The Girl with Seven Names, taught us about courage, survival, and the cost of escape. Her story gives us awareness without requiring us to live the danger ourselves.

Even fiction adds to our understanding. Jack Reacher’s world is nothing like our own, yet the tension and the choices show us something about bravery and moral clarity. Literary critics often say that writing becomes literature when it aims to describe the human condition.

Poetry does this too. Maya Angelou challenged the status quo and wrote about the struggles and triumphs of marginalized people. Her words changed the way many of us see the world.

What we learn from the lives of others becomes part of our own lives. Their stories shape our story. Their experiences deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.

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Brent M. Jones

Brent writes with quiet confidence and curiosity, exploring communication, reinvention, and what truly matters. His reflections invite readers to slow down, reconsider their stories, and reconnect with the values that guide them. Through books, essays, and his What Matters Substack Articles and Notes, he offers writing that doesn’t shout—but still speaks clearly.