Is it the outside world, that has been wearing down every grace that I possess, that's been escaped? Or is it the depths of my own mind, my perception of the world, that I've escaped? And since perceiving is a gateway to feeling, is it an escape from feeling? Our minds perception of the outside world is like our sensory neurons that determine what is good and bad, accept in bias.
I have not escaped life, but my own inabilities to live it. I have escaped myself, tricked myself into an unreality. One in which I can't feel real emotions and have real, free thoughts. One in which I won't have to worry about them because I refuse to have them, I suppress them in hope they won't exist to me and I'll be free of them.
Life's all about those little escapes really. Music, movies, books, virtually all entertainment these days. It feels like it shuts our the real world to the partakers. They create an unreal place that is usually aimed at making one feel good, but it nonetheless tries to capture them, suck them in, provide an escape from the outside world.
However, it really shuts them down to parts of themselves. Even small conversation at the work place, it's to make it feel like it isn't actually work, the try to escape the feeling of work, while continuing to work all along. You think for split seconds about the last words and the next ones furthering the exchange, but it has no lasting effect , nothing of importance is really talked about. Hobbies, clubs, sports, vacations. They all direct your attention away from yourself and focus it on other things that you feel for and care about. All so that you can escape yourself. An easy ploy. It's no wonder that each of us have the need of a few close friends we can be real with. Otherwise we couldn't handle a world of unreality. Escape. Escape.
No more do books have moral lessons at the end. Their soul purpose is to provoke your feelings; quick thrills and shallow. All for some character other than yourself, that way, you don't have to have these emotions for real things. They won't provoke your reason or philosophy. Why? Because reason and philosophy force you to consider yourself, and consider your world view. real work. It forces you to confront yourself instead of trying to escape it.
We are trained to think that the problem is without us. So it's an elaborate game of how much unreality we can take without losing reality. But we've been conned. The escape is inside, we are the problem, and the solution deals within us, not without us. But few people, being brainwashed, having their thoughts already thought for them, realize the truth.
Consider the pursuit of happiness. The opposite of happy is sad, no? The pursuit of finding that permanent, constant great escape, detaching us from sadness and suffering. Some are honest with themselves about this escape and turn to substance to numb them to everything- numb themselves to themselves. I almost give this person and initial respect. They're not trying to lie to themselves like the rest of us. They know what they want and they go after it. They live life more realistically, no lukewarmness. The rest of us generally peddle around hiding our true thoughts and desires. Although my highest respect is to the person who knows his escape, who sees his weaknesses, and instead of fantasizing about it in the deep, he condemns it. He knows the escape is temporal and empty, so, instead of lying to himself, and even others, he accepts it honestly and responds to it with shame, humility, and action. He fights the great escape so many of us blatantly take or conceal. And yet, his energies are not all spent on fighting this escape, because that too would be an escape in and of itself. Rather, he also pursues the great comfort. The comfort that fills the need the escape only quells for a time. To the carnally concerned there is only temporal comfort- yet another escape. But to the man who faces the Almighty in humility, faith, and therefore action, there is a sweeter savor of comfort on one can know fully in this life.
And so, the greatest escape is really the greatest fight against escaping. To face yourself, to face your Creator, and to live, in this life, in humility, faith and action, for the next.
