Where are you, non-writer reader? Please tell me your story

It appears to me that all the people left reading literature are aspiring to be successful writers themselves. I have very little interest in these people. It's not that they aren't worth anything at all, but that there are so many of them is deeply concerning. We've all observed that people don't or can't read anymore, which is likely why there's a disproportionate amount of writers. It can't just all be writers; statistically, that doesn't work to support the industry, but much more importantly, I think the non-artist casual/aesthete/academic/etc is crucial to the collective artistic process, and the whole thing crumbles without them. There must be people to enjoy and appreciate it all for the sake of itself, or to enrich their lives.

Please tell us your story. What do you read? Why do you read it? What do you like the most about it? Who is your favorite writer? Poet? Philosopher, historian, whatever, I'm not picky, just share it. What attracted you to literature initially? Anything and everything, let us know

bump

>>24526495 (OP)
Wanting to be a creator in addition to a consumer is healthy. Writing is something you can do on your own unlike a film or play.

i hate wannabe writers so much, they ruined this board

>>24526628
I have no qualm with the private writer, I suppose. I tried to qualify this in the OP with the phrase "successful writers". To be recognized, published, etc. I'm convinced literary magazines, for example, have a readership of academics or writers who want to get published on the given magazine and exactly zero other people (outside of maybe the most popular ones)

>>24526495 (OP)
I read books recommended to me by /lit/ and use the experience to write pretentious shipfic that's read by teenagers and strange adults. Works on my machine
I don't plan to ever write for money

>>24526712
I am not sure if I qualify this as a "writer" in the OP sense, but I am still more interested in the strange adults who read your pretentious shipfic

>>24526666
Ah okay I understand what you mean, like academic papers uselessly made and only read by other aspiring paper publishers.
Well, I don’t know how to find good modern writing. There’s still plenty of old vetted writing for me to consume

>>24526803
They can perhaps be found on Tumblr by cross-referencing with AO3 accounts that have hundreds of bookmarks and zero published works

writing must be one of the most narcissistic things one can possibly do

the ideal reader is always someone who doesn't think they can do better after all

>>24526825
Those serve a different purpose. I am referring more to the fiction/poetry/whathaveyou writers who think they have a special breakthrough chance, and are therefore only reading revered literature to validate their own work. The hundreds with MFAs who subscribe to Paris Review in hopes that they'll see their name in it one day

I want to talk to the person who doesn't have anything to say and doesn't feel the need to say anything. He reads the Flaubert or Keats just to be with the beauty, or delves into Greek philosophers just to unlock his own knowledge and understanding of the world. I don't know, something like that

I'm under the impression there were a lot more of these people in a couple generations past, before technology neutered literacy rates. I'd like to talk to who's remaining