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A Single Line In A Book Can Change Your Life
‘What will your verse be?’
It’s an improbable moment.
The flipping of a page, in a casual or perhaps even compulsory manner, thumb tracking the printed words in their wake, mind locked into a specific narrative. Then, a cursory glance, followed by an unexpected double take, first internally, later audibly. A pause. One line reverberating, sparking feelings and associations like a landslide, or, better yet, a starburst. And with it, a rush of fierce elation, grounded in sudden clarity. ‘This. This is it. This is what I have to do’.
Here we have the cinematic rendering of a very special moment in a reader’s life-when they transcend the casual, offhand pleasure afforded by an entertaining story (worthwhile as that is!), only to engage with a hidden truth, seemingly buried between plot devices and stylistic turns of the phrase. A truth so singular, it appears as if the writer penned the line for them and them alone.
It would be easy to deride this account as overt sensationalism.
After all, lives are not films, for all that we wish they were. How likely is it that, at a certain point in our lives, when we crave instruction or direction or self-knowledge, we stumble upon the very book that contains the exact nugget of information we need? That we can…
