Why do we read/write/watch stories?

from "Lenses" a book-length collection of essays in search of a publisher)

Fiction is not just for entertainment. It's also for survival of the species.
Each of us has the potential for living many different kinds of lives, with many different personalities.
When a group faces a crisis, individuals take on roles that are necessary for the survival of the group, with previously hidden potential coming to the fore. This happens naturally, like water finding its own level.
In reading and writing stories, we exercise multiple potential lives, and vicariously acquire experience and insight, which could, in crisis, prove important.