Anyway, I have been thinking about this alot lately. I felt like many of you might be able to relate to my thoughts on this, so I figured I would share, if you have any feedback, feel free to respond to this.
I feel like no other word better epitomizes my existence lately than "Escapism." What is escapism? Well to state the obvious escapism is (per Webster himself)
"habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine."
Ahhhhh escapism, thank the Lord hallelujah you exist! You sure make mundane day to day living alot easier. Though life is now mostly work, work, and more work, with a side of car payments, student loans, and long commutes, we can sedate the dreariness of dredging on with music, movies, tv shows, the internet, and much more! Though our real lives are not much fun, we can live vicariously through other people on screens who are paid to have fun. We can falsely stimulate our emotions with music to make life seem more exciting. We can wage wars and go on epic quests all from the comfort of our couch in between shifts.
Its funny that its not reality we live for, but the escape. We dredge through our lives so we can watch someone else pretend to live the life we wish we had. Whats worse is that the lives we see on tv often seem attainable, yet we decide to be content with our dreams just being dreams. We are a nation of dreamers, not doers.
The harsh truth of the matter is that most people pick the path of least resistance. The path that seems to promise the greatest return at minimum risk. However I am afraid in our culture too often we measure greatest return in dollar signs. When we should be measuring greatest return in the happiness we bring to ourselves and others. We have been trained to measure our own success in terms of money, when often in the pursuit of money we destroy who we were meant to be. We become little more than robots molding our lives around the pursuit of money and the display of wealth. We save to buy the biggest house, the fanciest car, and invest in ourselves to get the highest paying job. Never mind that in the end we sacrifice all our time in the pursuit of all these things, and therefore have no time left to actually enjoy what we obtained. After all, the point is not to enjoy what you have but to obtain as much as possible in a futile effort to prove our value. This is reality for America.
Since the reality does not deliver on its promise, we spend our spare time living in dreams. We spend our spare time deceiving ourselves into believing we are living the lives we were meant to live, rather than the lives we believe we are forced to live. Yet somehow we never challenge "reality." We never challenge the conventional wisdom that tells us that money and power is everything. We go one living splintered lives, forever restless, in tension with our very being.
I would just challenge everyone, including myself, to begin thinking of ways you can pursue your dreams. Just think, what is it about these shows that you like? Why are these distractions more appealing than reality? If its the friendships you see, then pursue that, if its the adventures they live, then pursue that. Be bold, don't be content to let your dreams be dreams. Make your dreams your reality.
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