There is a reason the classics of Hercules and the Iliad and countless other mythological narratives has withstood the test of time. Concurrently, perhaps there is equal reason that we have modern day superheroes such as Batman and Spiderman, or even pre-modern tales exalting the likes of Robin Hood and Don Quixote. They are all telling us the same story. They epitomize the psychological drama of our human soul's development. They are, as Joseph Campbell popularized them, the hero's journey.
We identify with these stories because they speak to our own internal crises. Life brings with it various crossroads that we venture upon. When our experiences challenge us, and we take the more difficult road during these divisions, we expand a little bit inside. When we expand inside, the world outside appears a little bit less big. When it is less big, there are less things that scare us.
Perhaps one of the goals in our lifetimes is to overcome all of the little inhibitions within us that prevent us from living the life of our dreams. The only reason we are incapable of living a life of our dreams is due to our own self-sabotage. "I couldn't do that." "That is impossible for me." Whispered fears, oftentimes felt and heard internally, that creep upon our entire being, like a mold colony darkening a piece of bread left in the cupboard.
Due to the natural impulse of our psyche to grow into something beyond itself, we find great pleasure in reading of characters in stories where they go through the most difficult of journeys. The degree in which we feel the story relates to us, is the degree in which we identify with it.
Same as anything else - we can only feel for something else because we are wired to actually perceive the feelings of others. Neurophysiologically, we have mirror neurons - which help us initially as an infant to learn how to adult. Yet they never go away - it is what allows us to read facial expressions, to generate compassion, and to unconsciously perform complex tribal functions such as willingly volunteer our time to help another being in need. We all possess in us a mothering, nurturing character trait - perhaps it was a gift from the female gene, perhaps if we trace it even further back a gift from God. However you choose to look at it, we have an ability in us to identify with and feel for things outside of us, and it is this innate trait that we are capable of comparing and thus growing from the trials and tribulations of others. Think about it - how else would we have survived if each of us had to find out for ourselves which snakes were poisonous instead of just take letting one poor bastard bite the bullet and save the whole tribe?
So this is the whole concept behind story telling. Or, at the very least, it is a primary purpose behind the telling of tales. To give us each some nugget of truth or wisdom that allows us to go through the pseudo-experience of actually having been there, and therefor create a simulated response that we can learn and grow from. It is fascinating because we know now that if we imagine something with enough intensity, our brain starts to tell the body that we are actually going through the imagined experience and our entire physiology shifts as if it is happening.
Consider the simple fact that brain cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined event - it sits up in a high control tower, a command center inside the skull at the apex of the body, and receives signals from the body/environment about what is happening. Yet within the folds of this neural tissue, the ability to generate self-created signals is present. It is this gift that offers us a chance to overcome obstacles, for we can imagine ourselves as successful despite some apparent challenge to our livelihood. It is also what allows us to be such masterful self-saboteurs. We self-defeat by merely thinking of failing, before the time actually comes to perform, and the body is now prepared to fail. We rehearse the script, and in doing so release all the appropriate neuropeptides, hormones and chemicals necessary for us to do the thing. This is very real and there is a lot of cool research and evidence supporting these mysterious forces of the mind at work.
This is why we love a good story! We feel the rush of adrenaline when the warrior goes into battle, and we feel the subsequent high of endorphins released to calm us down and bring us back to a state of homeostasis when the character survives the conflict. The more deeply we can imagine it as reality, the more we actually feel as if it is so. Literally.
Which makes the value of quality stories in our lives, one of the most important consistent themes for our development and growth as a human being. We've got to be willing to accept the truth and validity of any story, so that it might weave its spell upon us and we can learn and grow from it. The moment we are not open to the possibility of the story actually occurring, is the moment we close off to the invaluable lessons that exists within its words. The wisdom that is hidden between the lines, which can only be excavated by an open and curious mind. Someone who craves to know the Truth, and isn't closed off to the message if it doesn't fit inside the current mold of how we think things work.
What if we can accept everything as true? What if we lived in a world where superheroes existed? Where there were people who consistently stepped beyond the boundaries of human possibility and somewhere into the realm of godhood? What if the stories are true...? What kind of story would you write for yourself, armed with the knowledge that it really all just boils down to that... a story? Write something worth reading, or do something worth reading about. Either way, you're the author.