Master list of reasons why reading fiction is good

This is a list of reasons why I think that reading fiction is good. I’ll update it as I think of more examples.

• When you read fiction, you temporarily “load” a completely different life. This means that you get more diverse experience. You live a couple of other lives in addition to your life.
• You get to hang out with really cool people, and you get to meet really annoying people, and you get to learn how not to be like the annoying people. This is particularly important if you’re a kid, because hanging out with people from books is not that different from hanging out with people in real life.
• You get to have your mind changed in a way that wouldn’t have happened with non-fiction. Every mindset has its own limitations, and you simply cannot experience the quality and the intention of some thought that comes from a very separate mindset. Explaining love and connection to someone who’s just not into it is impossible, or will seem trivial to them, like why are you telling me all this stuff. But take that person on a ride, and they will get it. Same goes for other vibes, like curiosity for the non-curious or justice for the powerful, and so on.
• You can meet and experience very particular types of people with very different architectures of mind. Then, you can recognize their behavior in other (real) people around you, and you’ll have a better understanding of those people. This is obviously good if you’re trying to understand people.
• You get to see places that are far away in time, space, or any other dimension. This gives you a fresh view of that specific dimension.