What’s odd about literature is that a mind immersed in fantasy appears ripe for fixing by natural selection, since it always leads to erroneous beliefs and distracts from reality. Wouldn’t a daydreaming hunter-gatherer be easy pray for a predator on the African Savannah? It turns out that our ability to invent and tell stories might be a key adaptation that significantly distinguished our species.

This resonates (at least in my warped mind) with the Great Danish Philisopher when he quipped:

Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other clause—that it must be lived forwards.

The stories allow us to time-travel to that vantage point in the future. I guess.