How Fantasy is a Necessary Medicine

In this strange new era we are living in that is known as 2020, a few things have stood out to me. The first being our dependence on outside stimuli, and the second being our dependence on human contact. During the beginning of this pandemic I was forced to look at myself through a third party lens. I've always been an introvert and have had no problem calling myself one, that is until the lockdowns came into affect. The only human contact I had was at work and lets be honest, that kind of contact isn't fun. There isn't much time for talking and when there is, the talk is normally about work related issues. I started realizing that I wasn't as introverted as I had previously thought. There were plenty of activities outside the home that I enjoyed and missed. Looking back on it, if forced isolation was difficult for someone like me who claims to be an introvert, I couldn't imagine how bad is must have been for those who are extroverted.

So what does all that have to do with the title of this blog? Well lets look at the ways in which people coped during the times. Many resulted to turning to their Netflix accounts. So much in fact that the servers were bogged and outages occurred. There are some reality shows on Netflix but for the most part, many things on there are fiction and borderline fantasy. There were others who sat down with their favorite books. What does this tell us? Simply that when reality is ridden with contention, that we have to escape to a world where things aren't so bad; even if that escape is mental. Look at the alcohol sails during this time, it's been reported they are off the charts. What does alcohol do? Provides an escape. Fantasy is a medicine for our minds, and is much safer than alcohol. Even if the fantasy we escape to either through literature or media presents its own problems, somehow those problems seem more minute and easier to deal with. Or better yet, we want to see how the hero of the story handles the problems.

For much of human history, many cultures have had their ways of escape through stories and entertainment. Something to take our minds off of our situations and place them in an ideal setting. The ancient Greeks would often perform live plays based off the writings of Homer. Despite Homer's plays being centered on their religion and their ideas of real gods and goddesses, the stories themselves were fictional. These plays would last hours, and the audiences would stay the entire time for the sake of entertainment. Shakespeare often kept Queen Elizabeth and most of her kingdom entertained through his many plays and poems. Humanity has always needed an escape through stories because reality almost always seems grim. Fantasy, or fiction in general is a medicine to help us handle the grimness of life. However, I also feel that such escapes can help us see the beauty in our own lives and appreciate it while it's there. Despite the future seeming bleak, we can always be reminded through fantasy that every storm cloud has its openings.