What is escapism? It’s the desire to be pulled into another world, immersed by a work of fiction. It’s a practice that has a similar effect to meditation, as it helps one to de-clutter one’s mind by shifting gears and thinking about something else besides one’s own personal stressors for a while.
As a fan of fictional work, (particularly fantasy setting,) I certainly enjoy a good escapism. The fantasy genre particularly can be measured in terms of how successful it is by how immersive it is in this regard. Growing up, I lived in a place (and still do) that I find not ideal, mostly because of how pervasive the humidity and unrelenting the heat is. I much prefer the cold, and I do prefer rural areas as well. Since I found going outside in this place unattractive, I was drawn to immersive books, movies, and video games. The potential to explore other worlds is massive here. I’d get lost of days and days in RPGs and such, that I wanted to make characters and adventures for them to go on in a similar fashion. (The rest is history, as they say.)
I am older now, and still feel the desire to explore places away from my own current geological location. But not just through fiction; I wish to travel more than I have. I want to see more of what the planet I live on has to offer, not just other fantasy realms. Travel is expensive and logistically difficult when one has a family to look after, but it can be done.
If you are on the Adventurers’ Guild discord server, you’ll see me post travel photos of hiking and camping every now and then. I like mountains especially—there’s an immense sense of adventure to behold there!
I’ve been to a few amazing places, but I know there’s still so much else out there. It’s just very hard for me to get away, and far out of reach. Makes it much more tantalizing that way, I suppose.
My point in writing all this is to compare the sense of exploration found in an immersive story to wanderlust. Mostly just writing this for myself really, as a method of, as mentioned before, de-cluttering my mind, and pinning down my motivation and desires. It certainly is good also to be aware of the sense of adventure that I like to see, because as a writer of a fantasy comic, I hope to evoke that in others.
I always thought it superfluous and snobbish that famous writers would often vacation in exotic locations… if they’re making up fictitious stories from their mind, there’s no need to travel. Indeed, I proved to be able to do massive amounts of writing from a location I despise! But now, I definitely get it. Feed the mind with that inspiration of escapism to help pass it on to the readers. If writers only derive inspiration from other works of fiction, there tends to be a cycle of just rehashing the same things and an over reliance on tropes, irony, and “subverting expectations” (which I am guilty of to some degree.)
If you read this all, cool! Thanks, I guess! Hope you enjoyed. Let me know where your dream destinations are, if you are so inclined.
Season 2 is almost done! Big journal entry about that coming soon.
