I have been thinking a lot about the significance of Escapism and the role it plays in our lives.
So as the title states, I did indeed ride a flying dragon, and no I am not losing my grip on reality. However, reality is somewhat a misnomer in this experience, as the dragon I rode upon was part of a Virtual Reality simulation, and honestly it was pretty awesome. The immersive hyper realistic sensation of the VR experience was truly incredible. I was lost in the visuals of fantasy and the sensations of flight in the expansive outdoors. Soaring untethered was an overwhelming joy as no matter where I looked all I could see was bright open sky and the uncanny, realistic details of the enormous green dragon whom I rode atop of, scaly wings and all. I have to say the experience was quite addictive, as I found myself re-plugging in at several times because the sensation was really quite exhilarating.
I should note that all this took place standing in the middle of my local Best Buy which had a VR simulation set up through Samsung’s booth via the new Oculus rift, a VR headset powered by a smart-phone. After my fourth session I left the store exhilarated at what I had just experienced. As I left the store, walking the streets of Manhattan felt a little surreal, as if I were questioning the reality around me. I also felt a sense of euphoria, an intense rush of good feeling that put some pep into my step, and kept me otherwise distracted from the feelings surrounding any current life stressors I might be facing. Then, as they say, I started crashing, as the euphoric sensation was hard to hold on to, as it slowly shifted from happiness to sadness. This feeling would stay with me throughout the day and made having an optimistic outlook toward the obstacles facing me difficult to maintain. Once home, I soon came to the conclusion that what I was feeling was a slight dysthymic backlash, as my current life challenges seemed bigger than they were before, and the more I thought of them the more sullen I became. In response all I could think of was, “I wish I could ride that dragon again, and stay in that world.”
THE HABIT OF ESCAPISM
The desire to escape is in everyone, no matter your circumstance. Everyone yearns to escape the boredom of work/life. The lure of escaping the obstacles and challenges of life through fantasy or recreation is all around us, and is something that is profoundly human. From movies, TV, social media and video games, escapism is fun and, instead of dealing with problems, can be at times difficult to fight. What makes the lure so irresistible is it provides a mechanism to forget and move unpleasant feeling associated with life stressors away from the conscious mind, albeit if only for a brief respite. Unfortunately escapism, much like my fanciful dragon ride, is short lived, as the euphoric sensation wears off and our situational stressors remain present, often feeling worse than they did originally. As with my desire to return to the store and engage in the VR experience again, a situation can be compounded by the constant cycle of immersion. This habitual avoidance elevates levels of emotional distress thus increasing a need or ‘dependency’ for relief. Like a hamster on a treadmill, the cycle of escapism can lock you in, making it challenging to break free.
POSITIVE BELIEFS
As with any form of escape, the challenge is avoiding the trappings of dependency. Escapism on one hand can be fun, and with the advent of social media, can be entertaining and interactive, but as of late it seems as if escapism through social media is becoming more of a dependency of connection rather than an escape for fun. Dependency prevents the real ‘you’ from being out there, and impacts personal growth, as well as the opportunity for real relationships and tangible self-created happiness. So how do we avoid the habit of escapism and get off the hamster wheel of dependence? By developing strength based perceptions of challenges and obstacles. As with VR, which augments human perception to break from reality and replace it with a virtual one, we too can break free from the perpetual lure of escapism by developing a positive perception of our own reality. Essentially if your perception of the challenges in your reality is linked with pain, then you will find the desire to constantly escape increase, making reality feel hopeless. If we just focus on what is not right about a challenge in life rather than what is, then we miss opportunities to build self-efficacy. We should never assume there's nothing to improve about a situation or ourselves. Focusing on perceived weaknesses without either taking steps to improve them or giving focus toward our strengths, gets us nowhere. The truth of the matter is, it’s important to always strive to find the happiness in the reality that makes up our everyday work/life. The work you put into finding the positive factors in life will override the suffering caused by its situational problems and will thus change your attitude towards reality and reduce the dependency to escape.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Do you see or acknowledge your over indulgence in escapism? Do you find it hard to pull away from social media? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
All the best,
Ed Munoz