Self-created fantasies

Kat Dart

(1/2012) Isn’t it amazing to think that the human mind is actually able to reject reality and live in a self-created fantasy, for a short or long period of time?

Under the water, you are a siren, a sprite, gliding smoothly and effortlessly through a cool, quiet, peaceful world of blue and white, watching your limbs climb out in front of you and smoothly pull back, feeling yourself being propelled powerfully through the water as your legs kick, breaching the surface and then coming underneath the water, out of reach again, with a muted Wuuumph! .

Then you break the surface again, and your face feels disgusting because it is hot and sweaty and you can feel bodily fluids coming out of your nose and you are choking on chlorine and water and oh please when am I done? and there are people screaming "GO!" and your coach(es) waving her arms shouting "WILL YOU MOVE IT!?" in your ears and you are assaulted with wild cheers and the timer is in front of you showing how many laps you have done (and you’re thinking of how many you need to go still) and water splashing everywhere, because swimmers are ahead of you and swimmers are behind you, and you realize that you have absolutely got to pick up the pace and sprint (speed up for) the last twenty five, fifty, hundred yards of water, and there is absolutely no way you look graceful or serene because you are just trying to finish it already.

And a few short seconds later, you go back to the deep calm blue expanse of water again and once again, you are quiet, calm, relaxed. Serenity surrounds, bubbles trickle from underneath your hands and you are again the queen, ruling thy underwater kingdom.

Many people have issues. Many people deal with them in different ways. Some tend to keep going until they run themselves into the ground. Some people are able to manage their issues one at a time, and some have an innate ability to deal with it all. Some people take their frustration out on others, and some take their frustration out on something inanimate.

Some people dive into a self-made fantasy, distance themselves from their current issues, hide away from the world and let someone else make them aware of passing time. Try to live in a dream - filled haze so they don’t have to really be "here" to deal with it.

"I just loathe reality," Lady Gaga has said, in a quote now used by many of her Little Monsters. But, loathing reality, living in your fantasy is just a way to not be connected on a real level. It is like gravity - no one can escape it, no matter how far away from the center of gravity they get, they’re eventually going to come crashing back.

And are people prepared for the fall they are inevitably going to face?

So, I guess in the end I’m suggesting that I believe it is alright to stray away from living, delve into your fantasy world, try to escape and calm down for a while. But one cannot live in fantasy, one needs to come back.

Otherwise a reality is replaced with a fantasy, and that is not living anymore.

Thus, this New Years as a result of reflections I have made a resolution: it is time to stop trying to go through the year in my fantasy, only coming back in time for the bell to ring, only listening for my name directly spoken, only for the major events.

I cannot expect things to just happen; I need to work for them. I cannot live in this dream-world where everything I want can just fall in my lap as time passes. Where I get what is needed just because. It’s time to plant my dreamer’s feet back on the grounds of reality and try to get what I want.

I cannot continue to try and ignore everything around me, try to shield myself from the outside world. There is so much going on right now, in a personal matter and in a worldly one, why should I or anyone miss it?

Right now, it is the small things that really make a difference or matter, and living in fantasy will only cause me to miss them, and missing them means that when I blink again, the world will be in color and I will have missed all that has turned and changed.

Some days, I will go back under the water, cool down, be in control. Then I will break the surface again and breathe in all that is around me.