Humankind & Reality
I believe we all need to, occasionally, escape from reality. Many of us do it by watching movies and television. And we do it daily, often to the extreme.
The opposite of “reality” is “fantasy,” which denotes a realm of imagination, or illusion. I think it possible that the more mundane, or pressure filled, our life becomes, the more likely we are to engage in escapism.
As a younger man, I was guilty of escapism because of the unhappiness in my personal life, specifically, the steady drumroll of stress in my marital relationship. I often asked God, “Why am I being punished so severely? Have I displeased you so much that you would order this magnitude of unhappiness into my life?”
When he failed to respond, I assumed he wanted the misery to continue, so I got heavily involved in activities that took me away from home. It involved coaching in our city’s youth recreational sports leagues (basketball, football, baseball), anything that would allow me to avoid the turmoil in my home.
Fortunately, I devised a way for my two children to be involved and it let them live with me in this fantasy world I had devised. But this was not a solution to my dilemma for me, nor my children.
The reality of my discontentment permeated my life. Escapism promised relief and it delivered. What I failed to comprehend was that when I had to return to reality; go to work, pay the bills, attend to the needs of my family, my unhappy life was still there, beckoning me to return to the misery that wanted to be my constant companion.
Probably, many of us are guilty of failing to address the reality of our lives, to insist that we only be surrounded by people that enrich it, and thus make it robust and exciting.
During our daily dose of reality, we rationalize our situation, making excuses as to why we can’t correct the path we are treading, fearing a world that will take greater vengeance, demanding more than we are giving now.
Thankfully, in my opinion, my God reached a point where he thought I had endured enough hardship, reached down and showed me the way to a happier life. I am eternally grateful to him.
I am now an old man facing the reality of death in the not-too-distant future. I avoid escapism at all costs because time is my most valuable possession and spending any of it on illusion or fantasy deprives me of the joy that living in the real world now provides in abundance.
Now I’ve come to cherish reality in all its complex beauty. The joy I find in authentic experiences – a conversation with a loved one, the warmth of the sun on my face, the satisfaction of a task well done – far outweighs any fleeting escape.
My message of hope to those who are still struggling in the shadows is this hard-won wisdom: confront your reality, no matter how overwhelming it may seem; surround yourself with people who genuinely make your life better; and have faith that better days are ahead. The journey may be difficult, but the end goal—a life lived fully and authentically—is worth every step.
