Escapism

ESCAPISM

Whatever I will write here, is again in an enriched, elevated state of mind. He he. So, please feel free to ignore whatever you won’t understand.

This is written mainly as a document for most of my friends who are into Tolkein or any other kind of fantasy, quite comprehensively. I have realized a very detailed truth about myself and my reason, the actual motivation to enter into the world of fantasy.

I have quite a lot to dream about. Everyone has the luxury of possessing dreams as expensive as they want it to be. But, the people who make a difference are those who work for the vision and not let it go just like any other pipe dream. I see myself beginning to sing my requiem for the dreams I have or the vision that I have foreseen.

My main goal in life is to work for music in any manner possible. But, being born in a country like India, I need money for it. To have money to pursue your dreams without interruptions, the pre-requisites are: you have to own a house, a place to live and take good care of your parents who have been there for you, all your life. Well, that is the tradition most of the lower middle class families in India follow. And I see myself strongly following this particular convention, since I bve ive in it. But, the present kind of job makes it futile, since it is not much compensatory. Ridiculous accusations, falling prey to blind beliefs, being too gullible and getting victimized for the most trivial reasons are part of the making of my decline mentally. And hence I see myself more and more in a world of escapism from this hideous world and I forgive my injuries in the name of wisdom and luxury.

I don’t know how much it would justify me and my actions. But, I see that is a very genuine reason for my liking of the fantasy world. We are immersed in our personal horrors of futility. We cannot fulfill our visions in just a few years. Hence we seek a way to console ourselves. And we enter into a world of fantasy or any other dimension to seek refuge. If we think more deeply, we observe almost everyone has some very deep tragic reason for this escap whi while some won’t have any. I see our beloved friend Moggy, with her physical state, I see Crystal, mentioning in her LJ that she is most of the times, generally depressed, I see Ishy with her ramblings about general activities in her life apart from the ones which seem adolescent and I see Ery with some of her unhappy thoughts. There might be a few more, but in case I have neglected, I offer my sincere apologies to them.

Forgive me, if I am being provocative about this. I might also be blatant in putting the facts I feel on paper and refer to some names quite deliberately. For those, I offer my apologies. For, all I am trying to do is discuss the human nature and its mentality, particularly about escapism.
So, what are we talking about here? Was Tolkein also into a very deep grief-stricken state which led him to create this wonderful world around him? Lets us investigate how escapism actually came into the human mind.
When men are immersed in tragedy, they create great things which seek a high degree of marvel. This is the statement I put forth across all your minds. And I take this as the basis for this short write up about escapism.
Escapism comes from tragedy. The human mind seeks a refuge, a shelter for its deep sorrowful thoughts since it cannot handle them with precision and stability. It has to be put away somewhere else so that the mind can get back rejoicing in the Garden of Eden.
A
scenario of the death of a man’s mother can be taken. The man weeps over the loss of his loved parent. He feels the absence, the emptiness in his vicinity. A person living with him for most of his life exists no more. This causes an insecure feeling in his mind and drives him mad to tears. The depths of sorrow unfold. The tragic chorus is heard and revealed to the crowd. Can one remain in this state forever? You all know, it is not possible for a normal human mind to do that. It would become a state of insanity.

What is the next thing the mind craves for to seek solace from this disturbed state? It escapes. It flees from this uneasy substratum and flies to a self created world of comfort.
Is that how music evolved? The man in his early years as a primate was all alone and seeking a source of entertaining his mind, since he was rotting in the world of non-symbolic acoustics. He had nothing to explore mentally. So, he created tones with new symbols which gave him comfort. The sequenced arrangement of the tones he obtained became a small composition. This made a piece which soothed him and hence ‘music’ was made.

We look and marvel at all the musical compositions that have been made hitherto. Each tone brings us such a heightened sense of emotion, which we again escape to from the world we live in and seek that unseen and untouched realm of bliss. Beethoven’s 9th symphony is the best of the lot from what I have heard of the great man’s works. And it was composed when he turned completely deaf. He composed the music by chopping the legs of the piano and playing it on the floor. He made a note of what he was playing by feeling the vibrations that the piano made on the floor, which he sensed by placing his head to the floor, every time a note was struck. How ingenious!
The world of escapism is so bright and outrageously blissful. I sometimes want to live in such a kind of world forever. The creation, the middle-earth hallucinations one would get, which are not from remembering the scenes from the movie of the Lord of the Rings, but actually reading the book and fantasizing up to his own levels of imaginations are just magnificent. What do we derive from all of this? The happiness of dreams is finally found. We forget the reality and stop the journey through the dark.

We are mystical old bards, singing songs of great lamentations about our silly little lives. The songs become myths and legends if we put them to words especially in a different world, most unreal and highly imaginable. We meet the Far Arden when we listen to music, immerse in fantasy novels and distract ourselves even in the crudest way possible which is poisoning our minds called Television. That definitely does not mean that the world of escapism is useless and not to be tou. We. We being such passionate Tolkein fans cannot afford to think of forgetting middle earth. Our minds are opened to such amazing depths of rapt beauty and to abysmal minds which cannot be thought of in the present world. We feel every character in the zenith of our perceptions and laugh, stutter, cry or even console their plight in that imaginworlworld of Middle Earth. How mad can that be? Tolkein has brought us solace when we were drowned in misery.

I might be exaggerating this over and over. But do please think about what I have said and laid forth in front of your eyes. This escapism has enriched our world. It has brought a whole new world in front of you all to reach out for.

Born in big halls of mourn the knight seeks his freedom from the uneasy sea by acts of chivalry, glory and death. The wizard knows everything around you since he is the wisest of all. The men become victims of their own ill doings and rise at the moment of grief to become legends. Elves and hobbits become great tales of wisdom. The bard sings songs of all these people to lead us to a world so unknown and far. He reveals our deep secret visions of the unreal.

So come, lets us re-invent the myths and relive the old days of Middle Earth in our minds. Even though the storm of reality constrains us to our dull lives, the fables of the Eldar enrich our emotions with such finesse.
Now coming back to the basis of this write-up, is tragedy so powerful to bring such marvelous creations? What can we do with our lives when it all begins to fade away? Why not be content and happy and still fantasize? No. Fantasy is basically something which is not there. Why does it exist? It is because of a craving of something which was lost long ago. That something can be anything depending on the person who is fantasizing. A whole new world evolves around him to break away from the futility.
We tear down the walls and dance to the songs of the bards with such

meticulous emotions. We become works of art and turn mad in our own glory of imaginations. We become selfless by losing all the insignificant thoughts in our minds. It is almost like a miracle. The more we immerse in that world, our mind gets cleansed of the aching thoughts we have about the reality. We distract ourselves to lose that uneasy sea of emotions by imagining a different world. We save ourselves from the tragic chorus and gain that bliss, which we have always sought in all of our years. We spend a few more minutes or hours visualizing that planet of splendor. It gives us consolation and we realize we can continue living in the reality even though it might be harsh, because we always have a way to escape from the unkind. Reconciliation with the real happens when we come out of our momentary consolation we seek from fantasy. We continue with our lives and tend to live day by day.

All I can say at the end is that the escapism that we have all stepped into is something worth living for the rest of our lives. It has certainly changed my life in times of turmoil. It has given me hope to live for and the zest to work for my dreams and visions. I surely hope it has, for all of you people, my good friends.

And for that reader is is in misery anshesshes to seek relief,

Just hold my hand and I will take you there, there is a life beyond the dark, painful memories will all wash away, leave all your fear behind, join the path of grandeur…


Nazgul.