Imagination juice

Stories are my poison and I drink like a fish.  Always have.  Without them my mind dries out and I can’t live.  I’m always looking for some juice, some precious soul fluid to fuel  – what? – my subconscious?  My imagination?  My addiction? 

Maybe my deficiency.  I’ve never been able to write fiction.  Like an enzyme my body could not produce; a genetic defect resulting in a lifelong dependency.  My drug, my vitamin, my medicine. 

And lately nothing satisfies.  Perhaps there’s nothing tasty on television.  Or am I just tired of stories about other people?  There’s nothing I can use.  Nothing to think about.  The stories just don’t grab my interest. 

When they do, I make no judgements.  All’s well.  But now that they fall short, I start to see the other cracks.  I notice that nobody writes stories about people living lives like mine; nor about places like this one.  No-one gives this place any glamour.  Of course no-one wants to live here. 

And I sit here in my little white room and watch, over the year, doctors, lawyers, police, plane-wreck survivors and outlaws, spies and vampires, demon hunters, psychics, polygamists and explorers of foreign planets.  Sometimes I wonder if the great drive toward suburban domestication is evolutionarily suicidal. 

Somehow, there’s a disconnect.  The stories I read don’t teach me anything new, and I have nothing to teach from my experiences, because I’m going nowhere.  Are we all stuck, or is it just me?  Are we all just watching entertainment, watching stories that repeat truths we already know, or is that only my problem?  Where do I find the stories written by those who know more than I do?  And is there a story that will get my life going again?