The Escape of Fantasies

            I watch Game of Thrones. I have read the published 5 volumes of Songs of Ice and Fire.

            I observe many people of my age; the ones which I encountered in my education do not indulge in TV serials or such books. They are performing things of higher orders and living lives of higher orders. They will deny if it is asked, politely. They are nice people.

            I am hooked to narratives, especially in visual forms. Yes, it frequently forces me to neglect some important activities than can have serious bearings on my purchasing power and nuisance value. There is not much I can do which I do not enjoy and there is not much which will give me enough purchasing power while allowing me to enjoy. The problem is I am not bestowed with any skill that can generate alternative enjoyment, barring this writing.  But writing cannot be enjoyed like sports or playing music or painting pictures or for that matter coding or analyzing data to develop policies that help humankind. Writing, especially writing where one cannot neglect the quest for meaningful conversation with anyone who reads, compels the writer to the questions of meanings. And questions of meanings, if you cannot make them your pet that are to be loved as per your whims, can be disastrous.

            The required ability is to limit the process of meaning.

            For example, when we talk about malnutrition problems, we do not try to answer question like what exactly healthy people are supposed to do with their lives. We simply assume that no one like to go hungry, even the meaning seeker. No one likes to be frequently tired or ill. Hence, no one should be malnourished. We might add layer of how healthy people are more productive, without being bothered about what caused this health in first place. Containing the story, especially one where writer cares about the betterment of others, must have a meaning in strictly limited form.

            I was reading an article by a doctor which talks about ills of drinking. As it is the case, doctor has argued that alcohol has no uses and alcohol users have no happy endings. Naturally, we need to give up on alcohol or never start it. I try to picture this doctor, some fair guy with nicely cropped, side-parted hairs, specs with sharp silver frame, a nice jacket, cabin full of books, may be a stethoscope lying around and importantly a healthy, peaceful glow embedding the positive smile. Sure, he is the god of non-alcoholic, healthy lives. He has saved many from fatal health shocks, adding years to humanity.

            What bothers me is what exactly is to be done with such healthy life.

            The wise people will laugh at this. The fundamental sounding questions are defense of losers in most of the cases. They are raised to hide the underlying agony. They are invoked to conceal the failure, the insistent feeling of inability to conquer oneself and shame of not having enough to match the expectations.

            As I have learned till now, happiness is found only in a defined perimeter in the realm of meaning. Draw no perimeter and then only mirth left is quenching the thirst of senses. The skill of rising above the mediocrity is having a wider perimeter and being not aware about it.

            I haven’t got the perimeter yet, of regional, national, humanity or local community type. And I am not able to have perimeter only defined of myself and near and dear ones as my countless peers in the city have.

            When I see this continuously restless city, I wonder that movement towards something newer, something which is yet to be enjoyed is the only purpose of the whole movement. There is no meaningful, happy, inclusive destination.

            So when I look at those corners of the city who are left behind in the movement, sustaining on rotten sense of enjoyment, I wonder what exactly it is to help them. If my help succeeds, then it will shift them from a frequently collapsing track to a track that allows sustained basic level enjoyment with occasional sprinkling of calamities, like heart attack or accident or divorce. The help they need is to shift themselves from being current short sighted individuals to being long sighted individuals who seek happiness in planning happiness further and intermittent doses of earthly enjoyments with near and dear ones.

            Yup, I can help them. I can try against the established currents of society and increasingly exclusive institutions of education and training to induct some faces from other sides. I might succeed in putting one of those scrawny kids who would have died as scratchy drunkard as successful office-goer with mild paunch and obedient wife whom he will not hit ever in his life.

            Will I do any of it if I have so much interest in playing the scenarios and smirk like cynicism, one of my friends asks.

            It is like too much pondering over recipe resulting in fasting.

            There is a void I see in myself, void of being particularly nothing. I either use deceit and try to adopt some purpose which vanishes eventually or sometimes I try to stare in it, hoping that something will eventually emerge.

            Will it?        

            When I am fed up of the realization of void, I try escape, especially escapes which don’t cost much, don’t fool the senses and don’t make me breathless. So that cuts drinking and smoking. So I am left with visual media available quite cheaply once one has good internet connection.

            And once you are in, once you accept the joy that comes from detailing, narrative and almost invisible but potent cynicism towards the whole chaos that we encounter, you realize there is so much there. It is a whole world where you can escape to.

            No wonder, even at far cheaper level, thousands of housewives are hooked to soap operas on vernacular or Hindi channels. 

            No wonder, so much local train commuters sustain themselves on steady diet of movies or music, their ears plugged, isolating them from hungry race of gaining a seat worth one’s hips.

            It is purpose or escape. If you are yet to turn die-hard, you might say purpose of escape, which sounds like some dopey wife of successful journalist or editor who is borne to another successful man and dines with similar ones.

            I have this quote on my PC desktop: (which is sold in the name of Tolkien, but not really his)

            ‘Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!’

              Duty, liberty, I don’t know much about them. In best of my worlds, everybody will be free to do whatever they like, even if it involves harming others.

            But escape, yes, I know it. I know why I need it, I am an addict who doesn't get it enough, who is thrown back to disgusting realizations of void and my age growing like an algae around it. 

            And even if tomorrow I find the unending madness of purpose, it will be nothing but an escape.