Escapism

From Wikipedia: "Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people take to help relieve persisting feelings of depression or general sadness."

Now that definition wasn't completely satisfactory for me, so I decided to further delve into the depth of the internet to find one that was.

From Urban Dictionary:

Escapism
	An addiction to doing things that make you forget the world. Someone that is a victim of escapism is often found in self denial about things in life, becuase they find it unbearable to face the world. A victim of escapism usually has bad grades, daydreams way to often and has major mood swings. They also have trust issues and are secretly wishing they were dead.

Haha, now that is a lot more acceptable, albeit slightly sarcastic and amiable. The key word, in my opinion (which I guess defines a blog, the author's opinion) is "addiction". I've had a few conversations with close friends on exactly what addiction is. If you think about it, addiction is relative. For a gamer, a few hours a day playing a game you love is completely acceptable but maybe for someone who doesn't recreationally enjoy playing games, this might seem like an addiction. But isn't that relative to the guy who trains a few hours at gym each day. Or the girl who sits in the park, after her high school classes, reading her novel. They are habits relative to each person. Why not do something you enjoy, right? Of course then the argument is brought forward that an addiction is only labeled as such when a line is crossed and the addiction has a negative affect on a persons behaviour. 

The reason I wanted to talk about escapism and addiction is because I'm trying to find a way to increase my daily motivation to do what I do. I've been working a lot recently, at a small restaurant near to my apartment, namely Banana Jam Cafe. Don't get me wrong, the work is great, but I've also signed up with Intec College, through which I'm studying Mathematics, Economics and Accounting, in order to [hopefully] get into UCT (University of Cape Town) next year. After a long days work I get home, take a few breaths, and ultimately end up spending the rest of my evening playing games. This leaves little to no time for studies. However if I work less, I have less money to afford to study. It's a vicious circle of priorities.

Never mind the fact that I haven't been able to sleep in days due to love, or the lack-of. Sigh. Yes, I did recently feel the sting of the loss of a loved one through a break up. Another relationship dying to the complications of a long distance relationship. I did warn myself before. I knew the risks. And yet the passion for another human being seems to overwhelm the brain and any form of logic. This might be another reason I seem to be swaying towards this habit of escapism recently.

Discovered an awesome, highly literate, self empowered "rapper". I use inverted commas because I think he's more of a poet than a rapper, but I guess general consensus might suggest a rapper is more suitable. His stage name is Macklemore. Birth name is Ben Haggerty. He is not signed by any big brand music label. He created everything he has released with his own production team. He's done it solo folks. I find this very impressive, especially in the modern era where everyone strives to find a label.

He has some serious work, and some... not so serious work. His ironic single, "Thrift Shop" is huge, and has over 100 million views on youtube.

He does do a lot of serious stuff that really seems to get to me. I love the pride for the sport he loves and the way he takes exerts from live commentary from the games and uses them in the song.

My favourite however is a song entitled "Wing$". You can see with the title that he seems to be implying something about commercialism. The songs meaning is quite intricate and I'll allow you to decide for yourself what he is trying to get across to the listeners. I love it though.

There was a point to this blog before I started writing it. Now I've forgotten. Maybe in a few days when I'm feeling more able I'll get back to you.

Mike