Escapism: The double-edged sword at everyone’s throat.

Ask any random individual on the street what reality is, and I’m willing to bet you’ll be sorry you even did in the first place.

When asked why you want to find a way outside of reality in the first place, it’s almost rhetorical. Isn’t it obvious? Who wouldn’t want to escape the mundane and degrading existence in which we all share like a tattered blanket filled with holes and pet hair from some guys van at Woodstock? Who wouldn’t want to encapsulate their minds in a vat in order to avoid the horrors of war and poverty? Who do you know that just LOVES to be a drop in the ocean of billions, only to share the same fate at one point in time or another?

Come to think of it, why go back to reality at all?

Is it because we feel we can’t avoid it? That we have no choice? That this just “how things are” and we should be okay with that?

No.

It’s because despite everything, we’re here. There’s only one way in, and one way out. So in order to watch the sun rise everyday, its good to take a load off and disappear into another world for a little while.

As an avid gamer and mental stenographer, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my life and personality has been deeply rooted in escapism. Since I was young enough to even remember, I rarely fancied my time out in the world or public settings. Sure I had fun, but at some point my mind would always drift back to a galaxy far, far away, and I couldn’t wait to get back home and grab a controller to blow a mutants head off. For me, I saw the flashing lights and point tallies of a game as merit to who I was a person. I couldn’t load up an AR and go on a 10-man killstreak in real life( I could but I highly doubt I would unlock anything) so for me to feel empowered at those times gave me character. Real life just didn’t offer that satisfaction. That sense of purpose and heroism. That sense of community with like minded players. I was never into sports, so the lobby if an MW2 game was my Staples arena. And I could be MJ. I didn’t need to liked or accepted by classmates and peers, because my Xbox Live party was where I was not only a friend, but a teammate, a companion, someone people knew they could count on no matter what. It was truly my home away from home.

But as I grew, I began to phase back into the fold of the real world. I began exploring others avenues and branching out beyond the confines of my room. Eventually I traded my controller and headset for a pack of Trojans and a dub sac. Every now and then I’ll get time to poke my head in and be 13 again for a few hours, maybe kill some time in a few multiplayer matches, but the days of the whole squad coming together to corner trap some faggots in Call of Duty, or to terrorize Liberty City in a high-speed rocket launcher chase on GTA are essentially over. Everyone is busy beginning their lives and finding themselves to even have the time.

It began to dawn on me, we long to escape forever, but why?

I know my experience is only a fraction of the whole narrative of youth. We all get lost in other peoples worlds, so long at times it seems there’s no alternative. Granted, we all need to break away to recharge and replenish our batteries in order to avoid burnout(usually followed by a violent crash…), but at what point does it become too much? Is it based off the opinions and suggestions of others that maybe you “do it too much”? Or is it a void inside caused by unchecked emotional and mental issues, with a longing desire to use different mediums to block it out?

That’s what I want you to ask yourself now.

In most cases, extreme escapism is seen as a coping mechanism for underlying problems that one has not tackled in their life. They see it as a means to ignore and push away certain aspects of their life they’re not comfortable with, regardless of whether they know it or not. Reality may suck, but hiding behind a Twitter profile or a binge-watch session isn’t going to make it better. Take it from someone who’s fallen into the rabbit hole without even being aware of it: Deal with it now and destroy it, because no amount of social media or Netflix will fix it.