Why do we escape to daydreams and thought up stories?
Why do we keep playing out different scenarios in our heads to a degree where it is actually exhausting?
Why do we all like to avoid reality so much?
A big part of growing up is realizing that there is a gap between how the real world actually is and how the world should be. Most people react with helpless confusion or philosophical melancholy once they become fully aware of that matter. Actually a lot of people aren’t fully aware of that matter, they just get an idea that there is something deeply wrong with this world and since everybody around them seems to be fine, there must be something deeply wrong with them. So they escape. Some escape into work, some to foreign countries and others simply escape into daydreams and stories. Stories and dreams are maybe the only remaining echo of our childhood-wishes. The wish to be part of a better world belongs to our earliest phantasies. Phantasies that were about opening secret doorways to Narnia, finding mystical objects in attics and being picked up in the middle of the night by friendly pirates on flying ships.
All these scenarios we keep running over in our heads and all the dreams we keep stored safely in our minds tend to feel like great science fiction from time to time. They are impressive and detailed and insightful and they keep us going. They might even keep some of us alive. Unfortunately the more you grow up the more you realize they are not as accurate as you thought they were, but science Fiction never is. We didn’t have a Space Odyssey, we are still waiting for real hoverboards and Los Angeles will never look like the dark, rainy, neo noir version of Blade Runner.
In the end all the scenarios and dreams are nothing more like anxieties and a ways to deal with them. We are afraid we won’t fit in, we are afraid we’ll end up alone and most of all we are afraid of growing up. So we escape to our childhood worlds once in a while to feel safe and regain a sense of wonder. I think we share those anxieties and cooping mechanisms with everyone. So we’ll never be alone actually, it’s just that no one likes to admit their flaws and anxieties. No one likes to show weakness. No one likes to be vulnerable and fragile. If we could just be honest with the world and ourselves. If we could just let go of all the masks and veils of adulthood, we would grow into a new kind of fragility together. We would be united in our anxieties and wouldn’t that grant the kind of stability we all need to close the gap between how the world is and how it should be? To feel united in something - a feeling - to gain the strength to truly steer this world in a better direction. To change this world to the world we imagined as children.
Full of beauty and magic.
photography by dep schwedhelm and me.
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