Sunday, August 28, 2011
On Escape
I love television. There are many times where I hate that I love it. For as long as I can remember it was this wonderful other world where anything could happen. Well happen within budget for television. When I was little I would wake up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Even though it was Saturday and the sun wouldn't be up for hours, I was awake and excited to see what would happen on this week's episode. Thinking about it, I can tie specific television shows to the various times of my life. The Flintstones are forever associated with summer in Wisconsin, where I had to barter with my grandmother over just how much television time I could have before it "rotted my eyes." Happy Days kept me company right after I moved away for college. It's probably not exactly healthy to have television shows be so inherently embedded in my life, but they are my escape. That got me thinking about how just about everything in our lives are a form of escape from something.
I should preface this whole idea with the fact that I don't exactly believe that escape is a bad thing. It's most likely something we all need at various times in our lives. It can almost be equated to sleep, a necessary recharging in order to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Sleep itself could be considered an inescapable escape from reality. So is it possible that everything is just a means to get away from something else? As I've mentioned before life requires death in order to live. Maybe we need to constantly be escaping from something in order to maintain some kind of balance. Television is an escape into another world. One that's funnier, or scarier, or more interesting, or at least better lit than my own life. Music is there to drown out the silence. Children help us outlive our own mortality. Vacations allow us to leave our every day lives.
The thing about escapes is that they are our chance to break free, even if it's only for a little while. Most of the time we have to come back. Back to the silence. Back to the reality that some day we will die. Back to our daily life. And to be honest maybe it's not such a bad thing to have to return. In a strange way the fleetingness of any escape makes it that much sweeter while it does last. Although what would life be like if there was no need for escape?
I should preface this whole idea with the fact that I don't exactly believe that escape is a bad thing. It's most likely something we all need at various times in our lives. It can almost be equated to sleep, a necessary recharging in order to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Sleep itself could be considered an inescapable escape from reality. So is it possible that everything is just a means to get away from something else? As I've mentioned before life requires death in order to live. Maybe we need to constantly be escaping from something in order to maintain some kind of balance. Television is an escape into another world. One that's funnier, or scarier, or more interesting, or at least better lit than my own life. Music is there to drown out the silence. Children help us outlive our own mortality. Vacations allow us to leave our every day lives.
The thing about escapes is that they are our chance to break free, even if it's only for a little while. Most of the time we have to come back. Back to the silence. Back to the reality that some day we will die. Back to our daily life. And to be honest maybe it's not such a bad thing to have to return. In a strange way the fleetingness of any escape makes it that much sweeter while it does last. Although what would life be like if there was no need for escape?
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