#oneaday Day 723: The Escapist

Escapism is cool, and an important and valid method of keeping yourself sane.

There are, of course, many means of escapism, and different ones are more or less effective for different people.

There’s the escapism of a child giving life to the inanimate lumps of plastic they own. Without a child, they’re just potential, models, things to be looked at, without life. Add a child (or, more specifically, someone still in possession of their childish imagination) and something magical happens — those objects come alive, engaging in battles to save the galaxy; heroic adventures; or even just a normal day in a normal street.

Then there’s the escapism of a good book. Good readers also have one of the most important qualities of a good creative writer: that active imagination again. But it’s partly also down to the writer to create a convincing world, compelling characters and a reason for the reader to commit part of their life to staring at tiny print on paper, e-ink or an LCD display. You know a writer’s done their job properly if you can hear the characters’ voices, see the places they’re in, picture the things they’re doing. And as a reader, your interpretation and mental imagery might not be the same as the writer (or indeed the person who designed the book’s cover) — but that doesn’t make it any less valid.

There’s the escapism of interactive entertainment. Instead of passively observing an unfolding story, you become a part of it. It doesn’t have to be an explicit narrative as such — a long game of Civilization tells a story just as much as a chapter of Heavy Rain. The meaning the player chooses to assign to the experience is what makes interactive entertainment special.

There’s the escapism of film. Increasingly designed as memorable spectacles these days, a good movie plunges its audience into darkness before casting them into a whole new world. It could be a world of giant robots; of CIA agents; of lads on a pulling holiday. For those couple of hours, though, the outside world ceases to matter.

There’s the escapism of a good TV show. When you find a show that resonates with you, you want to stick with those characters, to find out what makes them tick, what they want, what they find challenging. You cheer for their successes, feel bad when they encounter adversity. And given the amount of time you spend with the cast of a TV show over an average run of a moderately successful show these days, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the cast might feel like “friends” by the time you’re through.

And there’s the escapism of music. Music is a powerful imaginative stimulus, but again it means different things to different people. For one person it might stir up dormant memories. For another it might encourage them to close their eyes and picture themselves in a whole new situation. For yet another it might have an emotional impact that reflects the things that are weighing on their mind at that moment in time. And for others still it might inspire them to push forward, to do their best, to power on through and do that extra set at the gym, or put in that extra bit of effort at homework.

All this isn’t even getting into what it means to be a creator as opposed to a consumer of all the above media, either.

The fact is, the world can be, at times, a bit of a sucky place. Having something comforting to escape into, whatever form that escapism might take, is important. No-one likes to feel trapped, so even if it’s only for a short while, escape into something awesome and return to the real world refreshed, invigorated and ready to tackle any challenges it might want to throw at you.

And if you don’t have anything like that? Then you need to have more fun.