Escapism. Fantasy. Surreal. Dreams. I love all of it. I started talking about the subject of escaping reality with a friend today, and they made me realize that I make a large amount of effort to escape reality through a few different avenues. So it's been on my mind all day, and I felt like discussing it with....well myself I guess.
But before I do, I want to share a story I wrote. It's been sitting in my notebook doing nothing, but I feel it pertains to this subject well, and I really want to share it with someone. So here it goes.




Awake.
As I speed through the trees they sing through my ears. The pale morning light combined with the saturated dawn air crashes into my bare cold skin. I see the hill in the farthest distance of my sight. Deep orange skies. A plethora of seats ascending, filled with uniformed figures. Their shapes are sharpened as I escape farther from the whistling trees, farther from the thick forest's breath. Monolithic sounds begin to race across the air – soft at first, but rapidly I feel more and more power exuding from this massive hill.

These sounds…it instills within me triumph, yet I tremble in terror at the foreshadowing sound-scape it casts. As I race and stumble up this infinite hill, my lungs begin to shrink in the cold air. Desperate to fulfill my curiosity, and put an end to these overwhelming sounds, I lunge forward and let my hands feel the moist dead ground. My back aligns parallel with the hill, and my legs begin pumping furiously. I speed up the hill. Faster. Faster. Incredible speeds I've never attained come with almost no dedication. But this unrelenting hill – if you can even call it that – will not give in. It feels almost omnipotent around me. No peak, no base, only a disfigured self seemingly flying over a terrible upright landscape. But before I adjust my eyes fully, the ground in front of me begins to narrow and shrink. "This is the end!" I think to myself.
Without warning, the madly conducted sounds cease as abruptly as they entered only moments before. Ground disappears beneath my hands and feet… I hear nothing but the sky's soft voice in my ears. Then I see it. The bane of my curiosity.

This was no hill at all, no. I catch in the vision below me an orchestra. A stage. A massive crowd. A coliseum. The very same coliseum which was built into the back of a great hill several years ago. But none of that matters now, not at this moment. Because at this moment, right now – I'm not running anymore. I'm not filled with curiosity anymore. I'm not ascending anymore. No, at this moment – I'm falling.

As I contort my body in the air fighting with myself in which position to destroy myself in, the specs of people below grow larger. "I wish they wouldn't grow up so fast" is the only sentence I could think of at this moment. None of them will know what hit them. Their heads will be filled with intricate intervals and beautiful arias one moment, and the next they'll be filled with my body.

Narrowing myself into a basic swan-dive position (I figure this will cause a smaller amount of destruction) I lock onto my pre-determined target. This blissfully ignorant woman directly below is almost within reach. I arrive at terminal velocity. I feel guilt more than anything at this moment. What a terrible distraction this will be for the audience. I can see my target in full detail now. I decide not to scream, it will hurt less without any warning. I turn my attention to the orchestra one last time. It really is a beautiful song to be destroyed to.

Then I see something unnerving. My target below is not paying attention to this majestic orchestra anymore. No, in fact she is looking straight up. Staring right at me. Our eyes meet – every emotion conjured in my existence all pours out at once. She opens her mouth wide and swallows me whole.

"Why was I running through the forest?" was the only sentence I could think of at this moment.



I've been obsessed with fantasy for as long as I can remember. Medieval Times, dreamscapes, anything you can think of. I was one of the only children in my generation to read all of the Lord of the Rings books before even entering high school. I played a very popular online game called World of Warcraft for almost 4 years. It took over my life, I was completely immersed in it for a long time. It was my total escape from reality, I always wanted to escape. After I finally broke free from letting that game overtake my life, I just moved onto new things. Massive amounts of fantasy movies that I'd watch over and over, any animated fantasy i could get my hands on. I spend a lot of time thinking about my dreams and wishing they were my reality. Yes, even psychedelic mushrooms (not an experience to be taken lightly). I wanted to bring surrealism to my reality that much. So....I think I've come to realize I am not satisfied with real life. The world that humans create beyond reality is what I am satisfied with. It drives me and makes me happy. Even the internet to an extent is an escape for me. Hell, 2/3rds of the music I listen to is based around fantasy themes or fictional stories. And I listen to music 24/7.
I just hope this isn't a bad thing, and it doesn't cause too much harm.

I read a story about a band. A band called The Mars Volta. One of their best friends and band crew went into a coma for over a month. When he came out of it, he told the lead singer of his dreams and sureallistic world that his mind was living in for the entire duration of the coma. He could remember it all vividly. He explained it as fantastic and beautiful, so much that he was obsessed with it. He confessed to the singer of this band that his coma-state world was so amazing and so uncomparable to his real life, that he did not wish to live in the real world anymore. They found him dead shortly after, due to suicide.
The bands first entire album was a chronicle of the stories their friend painted of his fantastical world.

The bottom line I believe is that wanting to escape realism is ok, but only to a certain extent. You can go too far. I just hope that I can find some new pleasures and happiness in this harsh world, to slow down my need for escapism.

Theres so much more on this subject I wish to write, but they are too complex to explain with words. maybe One day I will be able to turn the world in my mind outwards to the world around me...


~Cheers