In studying the whole world of escapism, why do people do it, what drives it, what’s this all about, one of the recurring themes is this feeling of feeling powerless.
There’s so many things in our everyday lives that leave us feeling like we have no control, like we’re simply leaves blown in the wind, or pawns in someone else’s game.
And that is an uncomfortable feeling.
Escapism, of course, is all about escaping from uncomfortable feelings, and that is one of the most uncomfortable, and it’s one that can be sort of imaginarily escaped from, at least we can pretend we’re escaping from it, by escaping into some kind of imaginary worlds where we do have power and control.
We can see this in video games, and we can see it in all kinds of escapist fantasy, where typically this is something that we have more control over.
We can have power to make decisions and take actions that actually change things.
And that’s very satisfying.
It’s very comforting to know that we can actually make changes.
We can actually influence our surroundings and have control over how our lives are gonna go.
So you can imagine how much of a relief it is.
If somebody feels completely powerless, then they go into a video game where they can now become a champion warrior or whatever, suddenly they’re a powerful person.
So what is it? How can we bring out this feeling? How can we have this feeling in real life, so that we don’t need to- we’re not driven to simply imagine it in some kind of temporarily comforting but ultimately unsatisfying way in imagination? It seems like there’s two approaches I can think of for how to handle it.
And the first is to actually find some ways to get control over our real lives.
This is maybe the ultimate way, the best way, that we can look at why does it feel like we have no power in our real lives? Something must be holding us back, that we feel trapped in a certain situation that we can’t change.
Now we all have certain aspects of our situation that we can’t change.
We can’t trade into a new body, or change what year we’re in.
At least as far as I know.
And there’s maybe certain commitments that we have that we’re locked into.
But a lot of what we seem to be kind of stuck in is something that it’s in our imagination, that we feel like it’s something that we can’t change, but maybe we actually can, and that’s worth looking into.
If there’s something that you feel stuck in, maybe you can actually change more than you think you can.
Maybe you have more flexibility than it seems immediately, that some of the things holding that back may not be absolute.
And if not the big things, then it seems like it can also be powerful to exercise control over our environments, over our lives, with small things.
Even things like changing our home environment, cleaning the home and arranging things, doing things differently, and maybe even changing our environment by going for a walk and just doing something that’s unscheduled for that day, and say “You know, today I’m just going to go for a walk” and just go somewhere new.
And both of those, so you have a statement of control over space by controlling your personal space, exercising your decisions, your tastes, your choices, over your personal space.
And then you can exercise control over time by simply deciding that “Today I am going to take a day to do what I want to do.” Now that can easily go downhill in a lot of time-wasting, and there may be other commitments that make that impossible, but we all can find some kind of time for ourselves that we can say “No, I’m taking this time for myself.” Even if it’s limited by other commitments.
And ultimately there is the idea that well, yes, we have this need for control, we have this desire to have power, but at some level we don’t really need it.
Because at some level, we ultimately don’t have power over our lives and the universe.
At some level we simply have to submit to the universe, that OK, we are going to be subject to the universe.
And as much as we can exercise power in a limited way, ultimately we are simply little pieces of the universe that will go along with the flow of the universe, and we don’t have, and we don’t need to have, total power or control.
It’s OK to go with the flow of the universe, ultimately.
Even though we can change what we can in our immediate space and immediate environment, but then ultimately, we don’t need to control everything.
So I’d be curious to hear if you’ve had this feeling, and what do you find is helpful for you to handle this?
#powerless #escapism #personalpower