My experiments with Escapism
Contrary to my usual writing style, I would like to include verses written by lyricists which closely correlate to my story as fillers (no photos!). I am quite fascinated by how hard hitting some of these lyrics are, as they compress a plethora of emotions into few words. Unadulterated display of brilliance is when one is able to deliver their thoughts succinctly. Poets and lyricist bring out this flair with relative ease. Since I am part of the long form writer cult, our brilliance is quite lossy and veiled.
The global problem we as humans are trying to optimize is : Reaping great value from the little time we are offered. Ever so often, we lose sight of this and spiral down into an escape. I for one is no way unusual to this behaviour. By conveying my story, I would like to conclude that we tend to jump from one escape to the other barely scathing reality. Our lives can be split into different portals embodying a particular escape or a subset of different escapes (a crude viewpoint of a lifetime). Before I dive into my tale, there is a question I want each of you to answer for yourselves?
Question : Why are we so comfortable to trickle our time into "unworthy pursuits" in the form of entertainment or a distraction? Why is a distraction so alluring?
To each one, there would be a different answer. While reading "Deep work" by Cal Newport, several of these vulnerabilities I had, started quibbling my mind and each preconceived notion began falling down like a domino. To list down my reasons towards engaging in Escapism :
I wasn't self-aware of my own abilities.
Fear of venturing into a domain which I could be ridiculed for.
Witnessing someone fail in a particular venture and reassuring oneself of a mirroring effect.
I convinced myself mentally that I am meant to only divulge in this escape. This is a dent to self-confidence and my perception towards self worth.
Many of my peers found common ground in my escapes.
It was relatively easy. And I believe this was one of the foundational blocks to perform shallow work.
"Paradox of choices" which I first encountered here.
Referencing to words from an article I wrote recently,
This was the year when I chose books as my medium of escape, because reality was quite scary to live in.
Throughout my twenty five years of existence in this world of ours, I was able to point fingers at different escapes of mine barring infanthood. We are currently living in a period where there is an array of options to stay distracted. Despite this, we are fairly less content with our daily activities. Due to the overwhelming nature of this, we are left famished from the paradox of choices. Breaking the line of thought that follows, here is a verse from my favourite lyricist.
They told me all my cages were mental,
So I got wasted like all my potential
- Taylor Swift (Song "This is me trying", Album "Folklore")
To disperse the intrinsic boundaries set by Escapism and extending the textbook definition in my own words, Escapism encourages a person to dwell in a fantasized reality delimiting their abilities. There exists some congruence between procrastination and Escapism despite being disjoint phenomenon. The end result accounting to irreversible loss of time.
Without further ado, I will articulate my different escapes and as usual, split them into three segments solely based on the period of their occurrence. On a concluding note, I will propose the steps I have taken to battle escapism.
First Segment : Childhood
"Run, run Lost Boy," they say to me
Away from all of reality
- Ruth B. (Song "Lost boy", Album "Safe Haven")
My memory isn't very well developed to be able to recall exactly what happened in this period. Much of it is hearsay from my family who have had some really interesting stories to recall involving me. Connecting the dots, I was merely a lost boy who never stopped running. Or to paraphrase it better, I made sure my loved ones were on a high alert. Having a very poorly developed immune system, majority of my childhood was spent in hospitals and sick beds. I used to rattle in starkly noiseless nights, developing either a high fever or some other sickness which needed rampant attention.
My sickness served as an escape from a normal childhood. I don't have any memory of playing with toys, other children or throwing tantrums. I do remember the crying. I was uncomfortably hydrophobic back then and rarely completed my meal. My family had a hard time, be it managing my sleep schedules, eating habits or having a good night's sleep. Adding to the mix, I was a taciturn and remotely silent and shy. Whenever I asked my extended family what do you remember the best about me :
Everyone remembers about my hydrophobia, pretty strange that people always associate to a singular crummy trait.
I used to question everything and had a very tangible belief system. (I still question everything, some things just don't change)
I utter very few words, but they are either brutally honest or unexpected. They felt that I was not very social but listened very keenly when anyone tells a story or a life experience.
I always lend my ear when someone tells me a story or a life experience. To the younger me, it served as an escape and now it accelerates my learning and reduces the time I need to spend to research more about it (this definitely depends on the authenticity of the person). Apart from some hazy highlights, this part of me is rather gloomy. I have heard that through hypnosis, we can unlock some of these memories but I am sure I wouldn't gain much insight apart from my fascination for anything and everything sweet (I can safely say that this is a maternally acquired trait :D )
Second Segment : Tween to Teen
The worst things in life come free to us
And we're all under the upper hand
- Ed Sheeran (Song "The A team", Album "+")
If you haven't heard this song already, I would urge you to give it a listen. It expands on an extreme escape : Drugs. I am not trying to belittle or glorify anyone taking drugs. I understand that it is hugely circumstantial, but once you spiral down this, very few are able to reach the surface again. One is accountable to self on why they would undergo this action but this is something that I would never subject myself to. No matter how painful a memory is, I will handle it with my full conscience and not develop a trance state where superficiality trumps. To anyone who does take drugs (barring medical reasons), please ask yourselves why you would want to subject yourself to such extreme form of escapism? After all, as soon as this "high state" fades, you must continue living your life. Not an advice, it is important to realize the intensity of your actions.
Now getting back to my story. I remember the first computer that me and my sister had received from our parents. It was a Pentium III single core, Windows 2000. Other specifications of this computer are quite hazy in my memory. I still hold a certificate I received for holding the "first place" in creating a PowerPoint presentation 🤷♂️. Honestly wouldn't consider that to be an achievement now to be proud of. But there entered the next escape in my life. I particularly enjoyed programming in Logic which was rather simplistic. The first game I played on our computer was Dave. I wasn't particularly good at this game, nor am I now (died in a few minutes🙈). I moved to different genre of games as years passed by, until I reached a limitation. A computational one. Our computer wasn't able to keep up with the current trend. Apart from this sufficiently monotonous routine of switching between these games which only resulted in a better hand eye coordination, this also had an adverse affect on my eyesight.
Supplementing well with this escape was binge watching movies. Movies can very well be synonymous to an altered reality, nothing exempting documentaries/biographies can be replicated in such an orderly sequence. Seeing the mass appeal of movies, I sometimes feel that we are more inclined to witness and find ourselves in an altered reality rather than just accept life as it is. This explains the celebrity worship and overindulgence of oneself into their personal lives. I am sure most of you have heard this quote included in the play "As you like it" written by William Shakespeare : "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". Why try to shadow an actor, when we already are actors in our own play? Apart from this, I had a brief escape with music while playing violin and affiliated theoretical music learning. But this didn't last quite long.
All fun and furore was cut short once I entered high school. Entering a remote residential school with the only objective of having a foothold into a premier institution left little room for pocket of distractions. Despite the apparent goal-driven environment, I was sufficiently allured by namely one escape which got me head over heels. Provided you haven't guessed it already, it would be reading non-academic texts. Prior to this, I had an on-off relationship with books. I often read fantasy novels, but never went overboard with other genres of writing. Call it immature requite, fantasy provided a glossy ramification of a rather predictable world of ours. During the discourse of my high school, I ventured into mystery, thriller and biography. A rather dull and predictive study routine was well complemented by thrill and excitement that these novels had in store. I don't particularly recall any other portals of escape I fell into.
Third Segment : Adulthood?
Tell me something boy
Aren't you tired trying to fill that void?
Or do you need more?
Ain't it hard keeping it so hardcore?
- Lady Gaga (Song "Shallow", movie "A star is born")
According to the Majority act implemented in India, eighteen is considered to be the commencement of adulthood. According to the global definition of adulthood, one is termed to be an adult if they are self-sufficient, independent and responsible. For anyone subjected to Asian upbringing, there is a very palpable difference. Am I truly independent in my decisions? Am I self-sufficient? Do I take the full responsibilities of the causality of my decisions? The question mark following the title stands as the fortification of this ambiguity.
My peers played a significant role in the next two escapes I chose to dwell into for the next four years of my college. The two escapes namely : football and gaming. My stint with football continued until the very end of master's. I can tell with surety that, I have safely distanced myself from these two escapes now. Football or gaming doesn't excite me anymore. Coming to think of it, I believe these escapes have a circumstantial motive behind them. My friends had ingrained knowledge in these two activities which served as a magnet, attracting me towards them (opposite poles attract, given they are accommodative to the values one holds dear).
The football matches were telecasted very late in the night (read early morning of the next day). The next day following which was usually sullen due to the lack of sleep. Football was predominant in our everyday conversations and gaming more so. In hindsight, I observe that every one of us were magnetized to certain popular pivots towards discussion. This was an accumulation problem, common interests bring individuals closer, but these pivots evolve over time. We move to different mediums of escape to express these pivots. Gaming on the other end provided a medium of escape to achieve and experience plenty of fantasies that isn't humanely possible. To add to it, there were very limitations in these altered realities. The common debate of "whether videogames invoke violence" is controversial. I stay neutral regarding this, largely due to the fact that this depends on the upbringing and environmental exposure of the individual in question. To further justify my stance that escapism is purely circumstantial, the compulsive form of my distraction evolved once I moved to Germany.
And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?
- Rachel Platten (Song "Fight song", Single)
Cal's "Deep work" affirms my association with nature. Turning to page 146 of this book, he provides factual evidence onto why it is supereminent to recharge one's energy in a natural backdrop during their downtime. I have previously written extensively on my various solo treks, but the concrete reason why this form of escapism was important for a functional brain with a propensity for deep work was reinforced to me by Cal. Prior to this, I was baffled by the therapeutic effect that exposure to woods had on me. I always found myself to be relaxed, calm and reassured after venturing into the woods. I realized in retrospect that many major decisions in my life were taken after deep introspection in the woods. I am someone who is very sensitive to noise, so a silent expedition to the woods always served my purpose very well and helped me concentrate better. Much about my escapes in Germany have been detailed in my graduate series, and I don't want to reiterate them here.
Our minds evolve in enchanting ways. I am not the same person now, compared to a year before. I have embraced two distractions (writing and reading) currently to be part of my routine. It is debatable to label them to be distractions, since they directly contribute to my end goals. My justification partly holds due to time I spend towards engaging in these activities. After some contemplation, I have accepted that the notion of a distraction-free existence is utterly impossible to achieve (unless one is a sage). But we still have the power to channel our minds to objectively choose our distractions and escapes.
Following are the steps I have taken to hold myself accountable of my nonconstructive time and optimising it appropriately. These are purely experimental and are very well subjective to changes.
I check the duration of time I spend on my phone at the end of each day. I feed this data into a table in my Notion workspace. My current average is 48 minutes.
I have allocated utmost four hours every day towards writing. Be it this article, emails, responses to messages or tweets.
I allocate three hours every day towards reading. Be it articles, posts, a book or a research paper. I don't resort to mindless scrolling on LinkedIn and Twitter anymore.
If there is an activity which requires my immediate attention and can be completed in a short span, I implement it right away.
I allocate approximately three hours towards any visual forms, be it watching a video or a lecture or television.
Being a detracted human, I don't hard-pressingly follow this routine everyday, but I try to be in close proximity to this schedule. Now that I have published it in my blog, I will be more accountable to my actions. What serves as a huge inspiration in developing this schedule is a superposition of following two sources :
I am currently experimenting with GTD ("Getting things done") by emulating this template developed by Soundarya. I would highly recommend you to explore her website, if you haven't already. It is a treasure trove containing productivity hacks, neuroscience, her life experiences and much much more. Her writing laid the foundational blocks for my writing journey and I have written close to 42,000 words over the past eight months in my blog since then.
"Deep work" by Cal Newport. I was first introduced to Cal's works from this blog post. I am yet to explore Cal's other works, but I can already observe vivid changes in my thought process despite being just halfway through the book.
I wanted to "reward" anyone who has read until the very end with a photo from my childhood (unless of course you scrolled to the very end without reading , that's rude! 😐) . This is my first article containing stories from my pre-adolescence. I felt that it would be fitting to have my contrasting, younger alter-ego's snap. You can very well ignore the supporting flawed statistics in the right, it adds no value to this post. 😀
To the regular readers, please expect two more posts to be bombarded at you within the end of this week. I have been writing three posts concurrently as a part of an experiment. The results of this experiment will be shared shortly.
Stay tuned !
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