Fantasy and Effect

    You walk into a dark cave with a cold draft; your only light is the torch you hold in your hand. You step slowly into the cavern and listen to your footsteps echo and in the distance you hear a faint dripping sound which may be your only salvation, water. The faint light illuminates the ground as you step forward and hear a large crunch; under your foot are the fragments of a human skull. You sense danger in the area which is confirmed by the sound of a deep growl ahead of you. The walls begin to taper in as you come to a small opening. You squeeze your arms in tight and begin to slide through the small crevice, the deeper you go the smaller your pathway gets. Your torch goes out but in the distance you see a small gleam, not a flicker but more like a small sliver of pure white light. You approach the light as it begins to grow in size. The walls of the cavern come into focus and the stone is a deep red color. You hear another growl and grow hesitant while making your way forward. The light begins to engulf you and burn your eyes as you step out of the cave and into an open field. The grass sways in the wind and the sun warms your skin for a brief moment before you notice a movement in the distance. You focus on the movement and notice it coming at you fast. It cuts to the left and then quickly jumps to the right trying to psych you out. You grasp at your weapon and draw it from its sheath but it is too late, you are now standing face to face with….YOUR LIFE!

 

    I know, a very odd opening but don’t worry because it is about to make sense. Today I want to talk to you all about FANTASY. I don’t mean fantasy fiction or fantasy creatures; no I mean the idea that so many of us live our lives dwelling in fucking fantasy worlds! You may be thinking that I am full of shit and that you spend no time in a fantasy but be honest, you do.

    Fantasy has taken on a great deal of forms in our world today. Many of us have basic ways to lose ourselves in fantasy worlds. Social Media has become the greatest fantasy to date. We wake up and spend so much time loosing ourselves in apps like Facebook or Twitter and quickly stop caring about the real world. We can argue that watching social media is an attempt to keep up with the real world and know what is happening in the world but what are we really doing? We are reading “articles” titled “25 moments that blankity blank did blanking blank” or stalking our ex’s and expressing our dislike for shit that really doesn’t matter. This is fine, I understand that we all need a break from the work day and I honestly should not complain because you most likely took a link from Facebook to even read this blog but there are so many people you see who live their lives on social media, glued to their phones and tablets, and never stop to look up and actually see the world right there around them. There is a great short film I find very inspiring about this whole issue by Gary Turk, if you haven’t seen it then I highly recommend you check it out here: http://youtu.be/Z7dLU6fk9QY  No seriously, go ahead, I’ll wait.

    I haven’t put it as elegantly as Turk but I do want to share the same message, we should live our lives and follow our dreams, quit worrying about posts and focus on sharing the big things, not with everyone and anyone but those we truly love and hope that in the end we can admire what we have done.

    With that being said, I can’t digress because there is still a great deal of fantasy to address. There are other forms of fantasy that keep us from moving and it’s because it offers an abundance of movies. Netflix and Hulu are two things that have given us so much control and yet such little free will, the power to pause and resume has killed our drive to seek out thrills. I love having my shows at the touch of a button but binge watching has become a speed bump in life. We tell ourselves just one more episode but then it becomes two, and three, and then four hours later you are starting season five and the day has gone by. We lose focus on the things that really matter and instead begin to wonder which character we would be if lost on an island. I know what you are thinking, there are plenty more fantasies than that, like Video Games, and Porn, and even Reddit. I could be doing more with my time, like cleaning my attic instead of playing Call of Duty like some kind of addict.

    I am not writing this to tell you all that we should stop using these things, not in the slightest. I understand that the real world can suck and often comes at us. What I hope to say is that we use these things to escape out problems. We hide ourselves in issues that don’t matter or games that distract us in order to not deal with the issues around us. We cannot avoid drama, nor can we hide from it so why don’t we step back from our fantasy and just take on the world and whatever it throws at us.