You Need To Escape Reality

There are guys on the internet who constantly remind you that you’re going to die—that unless your achievements are big enough, they’ll be forgotten, and even your great-grandchildren might know nothing about you. (I’ve talked about this in several videos.)

Pair that, with constant negative news headlines, social media drama, and modernity’s tendency to make you feel isolated, and you’ve got a pretty solid recipe for ubiquitous existential dread.

If you spend any amount of time on the internet trying to find a good answer to the question, “How do I really enjoy my brief time on earth?” most of the great thinkers will give you the same answers:

• Do challenging things that help you grow

• Attach your own meaning to what you do (if you have trouble believing in an ethereal force)

• Develop self-awareness around your traumas, unlearn your negative beliefs, and heal from your past.

I have zero arguments against doing these things.

But what happens when the heaviness of life becomes so unbearable, that committing yourself to these activities can no longer be done at your usual pace?

There are countless people in this world who go through so much unnecessary suffering. Chronic illness, premature deaths of friends and family… the list is endless.

Simply telling these people “Just be on your purpose” or “Keep sitting with those uncomfortable, sad thoughts” is only helpful under certain contexts, and certain doses.

Sometimes, you need to escape. In fact, I think you should escape—temporarily.

When I was going through a brutal breakup during the pandemic, I would go over to my friends house and lay on the couch in their basement, immersing myself in whatever movie we put on.

And you know what? That form of temporary escapism from my reality was just as healing as doing inner work to accept the grief I was going through.

Life is f*cking hard. Sometimes, escaping it—at least for a while—is necessary, as long as it helps time do its work in healing you.

In the right context, blending escapism with inner work can actually be more effective than inner work alone. Just don’t let the escape become a way to avoid life’s suffering entirely.

Book Chronicles #9

As promised, I’m here to give you updates on my upcoming novel, Fractured Worlds. (That name is not official yet, but I’ll probably end up going with it.)

My Fiancée’s birthday is coming up, so I was only able to write a little over a thousand words this week. Still, it was enough to force me to figure out how I’m going to incorporate the protagonist’s mentor into the book.

The protagonist’s mentor shares his mind-splitting ability, and I wanted their meeting to feel like chance while still being meaningful. To set this up, I created a scene where, during one of the protagonist’s episodes, his "body" manifests in the parallel reality—right in view of a surveillance camera.

The mentor, who has been searching for others like himself, monitors multiple surveillance feeds in the parallel reality, hoping to spot someone with the same ability. When he sees the protagonist appear on camera in an unexplained anomaly, he realizes he may have finally found another like him—and sets out to track him down.

Hopefully that makes sense. It’ll make much more sense in the novel if it doesn’t.

See you next week.

Quote of The Week

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Cole