Fantasy is poison for the mind

[Cognisant]

Fantasy is implicitly fiction that is more fantastic than reality.

Whether the world this label is applied to is grander, more beautiful, more exciting or even more horrifying than reality, it's always something more, something greater, an idealized version of reality for it is neigh impossible to create fiction that does not have some basis in reality.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the reality of it (that adults treat children to presents and joyful traditions to teach the importance of community and family) is not a bad reality, it's actually a good thing, something to be proud of, but the reality of it can never be as magical as the fantasy.

The problem is we live in a world where the fantasy has never been more real, we have become very good at coming up with ever more incredible and vivid fantasies and we use technology and showmanship to bring them to life, and although that's undeniably fun I fear we risk becoming lost in the fantasy. So caught up in trying to experience the ideal that we lose appreciation for what's real, and consequently end up chasing things that used to make us happy and yet find them unsatisfying, like a drug addict forever chasing that first high.

Except it's not the growing tolerance of a drug that's robbing us of our enjoyment, rather its the separation of the ideal from the real, a fantasy may be implicitly more fantastic than reality but there is no substitute for reality.

Consider if you won the lottery and all of a sudden you were incredibly wealthy, sure you would be overwhelmed with joy, and yet it's not uncommon for very wealthy people to also be very lonely and unhappy, their wealth makes it difficult to have real interactions with people, everything becomes transactional and they can never be sure whether their friends are actually their friends or merely pretending to be so for ulterior motives. Those expensive toys that used to bring you such joy begin to lose their appeal, so you buy the latest one, a better one, you have it gilded in gold, and yet the harder you try the less joy there is to be had, what fun is a toy if you have nobody to play with? Why did you want it in the first place?

What do you really want?

Society has changed, technology has changed, but people are still the same as they've always been, evolution takes millions of years and even the oldest civilizations are only a few thousand years old, so even if you went as far back as the days when people lived in caves and high technology was knowing how to start a fire, they weren't really different to people today.

Do you think they were happy? Do you think they were capable of being happy?

Surely not, they don't have all the fancy things that we are utterly convinced we need to make ourselves happy, how could they possibly be happy with none of these fancy toys to entertain them?

Truth is they were happy, arguably happier than we are today, because their minds weren't so caught up in fantasies that they couldn't appreciate the good in their reality and consequently weren't distracted from the things that actually matter if one wishes to be happy.

 

[Black Rose]

No social relationships = no happiness

ok,

but why do people socialize?

when the kings and queens had nothing to do they started hiring scientists to run/govern society. the peasants were happy to eat drink and milk cattle but the nobility had nothing to do and were bored. science was a good option.

my options are limited. the cognitive power it takes to do intellectual work is not there so I do other things but socialization is hard because no money for university.

all my time is spent on the Internet to learn.
it gives me something to do.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Loved this post. I agree mostly with it, except that I believe the mind can compartmentalize things and it really deep down knows if something is an escape/vacation type of fantasy, or just an idea to ponder, versus if you relied on it too much and weren't told it was fantasy growing up, it might become a big disappointment to you later to learn Santa wasn't real.

If you are a good parent, you teach kids early that Santa and Religion are more or less not real and not to rely on it and then you trust your parent more because they didn't want you to be fooled by it.

Then, you can go on to learn that some fantasy is story telling and just lightly carries the mind to other places, which can be healthy. Day dreaming for example in small chunks of the day is actually very healthy for the brain. But, I do appreciate this post, because I tend to think fantasy can be unhealthy if you believe in it too strongly. Which is why you want to compartmentalize right brain leaps and creativity and fantasy as just a healing mode without depending upon it too much. Spirituality is ok, you are just basically creating neuro elasticity patterns that help the brain stretch and grow some. As long as you don't believe your own thoughts too much. I mean, you've got to be on the fence and see both sides as part of the same, and one is play and fun, and one is just whats really there. One helps you escape the doldrums of every day and can actually help you face the boring day to day a little better. Keep fantasy compartmentalized and in its place though. Neptunian influences are not to be completely trusted.

I guess if you are asking me what do I really want, one word would be an ENERGETIC feeling, that I had the capacity and where withal to be outgoing, meet people, be unafraid of people, and exchange lovely pure energy with others and create relationships that are fun and free easily and just feel my stores of energy don't deplete or aren't usurped in the wrong way, ie, feeling whole, energetic, and deeply connected to source and heart and mind.

 

[ZenRaiden]

It can be.

 

[Cognisant]

Alcohol is a poison, there's no healthy amount, but I still drink whiskey.

I'm not saying all fantasy must be banned for the good of society (I wonder what that prohibition would look like) but we should openly acknowledge that it poisons the mind.

 

[Black Rose]

Alcohol is a poison, there's no healthy amount, but I still drink whiskey.

I'm not saying all fantasy must be banned for the good of society (I wonder what that prohibition would look like) but we should openly acknowledge that it poisons the mind.

huh?

but would that be the same with music?

 

[Cognisant]

I have noticed that certain attitudes coincide with people who listen to certain kinds of music, but which is the effect and the cause is hard to say.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Art is therapeutic in all its forms, and people tend to find themselves in art.
It comes down to questions whether we use fantasy as substitute to dealing with life, or finding viable solutions in life.

There is also something you made me think about, how we tend to increasingly think in binary ways, its either yes, or no, 0 or 1. Our brains can think that way, but our brains are better if we don't think always that way.

For me fantasy and art, come down to quality, what emotions get evoked, how I interpret art.
Even bad art, can be a lesson. That is negative can affirm the positive etc.

I think the real problem with art today it can be very preachy, one dimensional or send very wrong message to people.

For me art, and fantasy, should open people up to new possibilities, teach people, show compassion, beauty, inspire, maybe prod our shadow, elicit positive emotions, arouse senses, bring humor and understanding, basically anything positive.

Art can be negativistic and even too much morbid or dystopian.

I think we all need a little dose of toxicity in life, to become more immune to it, but obviously there is reasonable limit to how much we are exposed to these things.

I for one stopped watching sci fi, almost all of it, because it was so negative and dystopian. There is only so many dystopian movies one can watch.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I have noticed that certain attitudes coincide with people who listen to certain kinds of music, but which is the effect and the cause is hard to say.

Both. With humans its more about feedback loops than cause and effect.

 

[Cognisant]

I for one stopped watching sci fi, almost all of it, because it was so negative and dystopian. There is only so many dystopian movies one can watch.

For the purposes of this discussion I'm including sci-fi within the scope of fantasy, because it's not the genre that matters, but rather fiction that goes beyond the scope of reality.

Heck even soap operas and sitcoms could be included, they may be ostensibly set in the "real world" but the characters don't behave like real people and there are entire cultures that have been poisoned by this.

Filipinos and latinas are notoriously dramatic, and they love soap operas, granted as you say Zen it's not a matter of cause and effect but rather a feedback loop, they like soap operas because they're inherently dramatic people and being very dramatic is normalized to them because they watch a lot of soap operas.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Filipinos and latinas are notoriously dramatic, and they love soap operas, granted as you say Zen it's not a matter of cause and effect but rather a feedback loop, they like soap operas because they're inherently dramatic people and being very dramatic is normalized to them because they watch a lot of soap operas.

Drama conflict is OK with me, as long as the people are honest about their discontent.
I prefer angry, but honest people, if there is conflict.
What I think is toxic -- drama for sake of drama, or manipulative drama.
If that happens, my capacity to be functional human plummets.

Many dramas are toxic templates that can feed idiotic ideas to people.

I remember watching documentary about Bhutan being one of the happiest nations, but they are one of the poorest nations as well.
What was interesting this non materialist poor nation, was introduced to money, and typical behaviors that come with money were very toxic to these people.
They never used money so much, never did business and never understood status.
Money gave them bit of a culture shock, and so they became less happy.
The problem is not money obviously.
The problem is the money rearranged their cultural expectations and power-dynamics, and overall, they were just cartoonishly capitalist.

IN same way each time culture gets a zap of new type of idea, ideology, or some sort of new mojo, its like a rock that falls into calm water. The new waves shake the people up, and it takes time before the new thing, comes to status quo and levels of into more stable and doable form of culture.
I think a lot of culture shock today on repeat creates a very disturbed society.

 

[scorpiomover]

Fantasy is implicitly fiction that is more fantastic than reality.

Whether the world this label is applied to is grander, more beautiful, more exciting or even more horrifying than reality, it's always something more, something greater, an idealized version of reality for it is neigh impossible to create fiction that does not have some basis in reality.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the reality of it (that adults treat children to presents and joyful traditions to teach the importance of community and family) is not a bad reality, it's actually a good thing, something to be proud of, but the reality of it can never be as magical as the fantasy.

The problem is we live in a world where the fantasy has never been more real, we have become very good at coming up with ever more incredible and vivid fantasies and we use technology and showmanship to bring them to life, and although that's undeniably fun I fear we risk becoming lost in the fantasy. So caught up in trying to experience the ideal that we lose appreciation for what's real, and consequently end up chasing things that used to make us happy and yet find them unsatisfying, like a drug addict forever chasing that first high.

This is something that I have thought about for over 20 years now.

I have a friend who pointed out that escapism is just another form of addiction. I can see lots of versions of this, including fantasy and porn.

I have heard that porn reduces sexual desire. However, I've watched programmes of Africans saying that when they watched porn, they got MORE horny for women.

Also, I have heard that the inspiration for mobile phones came from the communicators in Star Trek.

I also read that many scientists were inspired to go into science because of the Science Fiction they watched on TV.

So it's pretty clear to me that in many cases, fantasy has been a powerful motivator.

I suspect that the difference between those who watch fantasy and are inspired, and those who watch fantasy as a means of escape, is that those who are inspired by fantasy, BELIEVE that their fantasy could yield results, BECAUSE they have the other skills necessary to make them a reality. So their fantasy is a motivator for reality.

Those who see fantasy as a means of escape, BELIEVE that their fantasy could never be real for them, BECAUSE they lack the other skills necessary for the fantasy to solve their issues. So their fantasy is a reminder that they can't do those things, and so inhibits them even more.

Society has changed, technology has changed, but people are still the same as they've always been, evolution takes millions of years and even the oldest civilizations are only a few thousand years old, so even if you went as far back as the days when people lived in caves and high technology was knowing how to start a fire, they weren't really different to people today.

Do you think they were happy? Do you think they were capable of being happy?

Surely not, they don't have all the fancy things that we are utterly convinced we need to make ourselves happy, how could they possibly be happy with none of these fancy toys to entertain them?

Truth is they were happy, arguably happier than we are today, because their minds weren't so caught up in fantasies that they couldn't appreciate the good in their reality and consequently weren't distracted from the things that actually matter if one wishes to be happy.

I would love to say that was true. But if you didn't have the fantasy, you'd still be in the same boat, but without the fantasy.

So if you are the type of person who, if you were to have a problem that you'd never seen as a fantasy, would solve that problem, but if you had seen it as a fantasy, would never solve that problem, then cutting yourself off from fantasies would work to solve your problem.

But how would we know if you are that type of person? Well, you probably have lots of things that you'd LIKE to do, some of which you've seen a lot of on TV and the internet, and some of which you've never seen on TV or the internet. So simply by writing down the things that you'd like, that you've seen on TV and the internet, and writing down the things that you'd like, that you've never seen in any fantasy on TV or the internet, and then checking which of those you have actually made happen IRL, or at least worked on and got headway with, you'd know already if you were that type of person that would benefit from being cut off from fantasy.

From what I have observed, those without confidence and without fantasy, were not any more successful. They were just less bothered about their failures, because they were not watching anything that reminded them of their goals and their failures.

So I doubt that cutting out the fantasy would improve most people's lot. But it would make them more willing to accept their misery.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Those who see fantasy as a means of escape, BELIEVE that their fantasy could never be real for them, BECAUSE they lack the other skills necessary for the fantasy to solve their issues. So their fantasy is a reminder that they can't do those things, and so inhibits them even more.

I felt a lot of times that was my case before.
I think though reality seemed more damaging than any fantasy I ever encountered.
I do believe that fantasy can be dead end for people a lot of time. Balance is important.

 

[birdsnestfern]

It can be a bridge to other rhelms, but I classify it all as Neptunian, dreamy stuff, ponderings, dreams, writings, stories that might carry cultural messages for us. You can ask, what is its message, and is it relevant to me at the moment?