The world we live in seems to thrive off of policing. Every thought spoken aloud, every action is subject to the beliefs of a million others. You say something, the word spreads, and everyone has their own thoughts on the matter. May it be your political opinions and alignments, or your ways of living: there are always comments to be heard.
Frankly, it gets exhausting to be wary of every step, every word just in case someone wrong might be watching. There is a certain need to be alone, to relax, to unwind from the constant judgment surrounding you. There needs to be a place of solace, and this place can often be much more than just a place. It could be a line of poetry you read when you were fifteen and has stuck with you since then. It can be a movie you watched when the times were terrible and it comforted your aching self. It could be a song you belted with your school friends, it could be a book recommended by your favorite person. Hell, it could even be your favorite person. A place is seldom just a place and an oasis more than the scant gulps of water it offers.
A lot of us find comfort in fiction. We find comfort in movies of superheroes determined in saving the planet. We find comfort in cowboys catching bounties on Ganymede with their adorable pet corgi. We find comfort in the way this enslaved man grows on to become the most lovable character we’ve ever read. Case in point: escapism hits harder when it takes your brain away from the world quite literally. Fantasy worlds seem too good to be true, and it’s somewhat relieving to read/watch/listen about people having magic/technology advanced enough to wipe off their troubles (or at least empower them enough to battle the doubts away.)
Despite the number of blatant differences between their world and ours, we can’t help but see ourselves within those troubled characters. And it’s the hope they have, the way they deal with their inner battles that encourages us to strive forward. You may not know about living under an overpowering, cruel ruler, but you do understand living in an oppressive world. You may not be a twenty-one-year-old who lost everything to the crime syndicate he worked for, but you do know loss. It is very common for fictional worlds to reflect our own ones. These reflections are usually veiled under the guise of plot and world-building, but the similarities are there.
Once you acknowledge this face, you start unveiling all kinds of truths in these tales. If fictional problems reflect ours, then so do the values imbibed in our favorite flawed characters. You realize that the story about stealing a fortune from the cruel Lord Ruler was actually just a lesson in hope. You find that the horror tales of archivists battling supernatural evils were an ode to love and trust, and to the undying power of finding a family in the people around you. The show about a vigilante hacker causing economic collapse was just a lesson in coming to terms with your trauma and that bounty hunter anime was teaching you that you’re gonna carry the weight of your actions wherever you go. As said earlier, a place is seldom just a place and an oasis more than the scant gulps of water it offers.
Seeing so much of our own struggles in the media you consume to unwind can seem to be a little stressful. You may find the whole concept a little jarring; to find yourself tucked between pages written by someone who’s never known you can seem quite alarming. The mortifying ordeal of being seen manifests itself in more ways you can imagine, and it hits like a train crash every time. Yet, the comfort it offers is worth it all. You see someone just like you dealing with pain akin to yours and the feeling it invokes is enough to render one speechless. You get horrified, you get hurt, you cry it out, and when the tears finally dry, you accept your pain and you move on. You carry that weight. And that is something truly beautiful.