Escaping Reality with Fiction
Reality often treat us harshly, leaving us with little satisfaction, various frustrations and helpless in our circumstances. In this situation, we start to escape it with or without knowing it, often projecting ourselves into videos we see online, or fictional characters.
One clear trend we see is that the craze on sci-fi stories is now replaced with fantasy worlds. This is a sign of people losing hope in where our future is going, no longer thinking it will be all advanced and nice as in "Back to the Future", and favouring alternate realities where swords and magic exists, and anything seem to be possible.
An sub-genre of all these fore-mentioned stories are power fantasies, which I will not deny I also binge them at times. They follow the logic of protagonist having some secret power or help that always helps them overcome their challenges, giving ourselves a sense of control in this increasingly out of control world where politics are clashing, prices are inflating, and jobs are disappearing. Although, it is fair to say, they are still good fun to read when the plot leaves you thinking, and refrain from repeating old tricks again and again.
However, as nice as these fantasies are, they rarely help us in reality. The psychological satisfaction is based on an illusion, no longer able to push us to do the hard thing and rewarding us for it. It pains me to say this, but there is no easy way out. The modern world is engineered to hack our biology, to hack our psychology, and one cannot simply say "no".
Here I propose a small hypothesis.
Since the satisfaction of power fantasy stories are based on progression and overcoming challenges, we should start adjusting our mindset to see the world as a set of quests. And the key is to set some direction, figure out the steps, and try to keep up with it.
This is certainly easier said than done, so I will refrain from elaborating without any solid facts. However, I'm sure the world have wide ranges of resources to offer if you ask, whether it is YouTube videos, books, or asking friends for advice.
At last, I hope you acknowledge the fact that there're retreats from the harsh reality in stories. Just don't get too absorbed into it.
-Rui (Currently addicted to yet another novel)
If you find this interesting and want to chat, come join our Discord!