I’ve just read a blog entry by one of my favourite webcomic authors (Mr Scott. R. Kurtz) here, where he talks about using TV as a coping mechanism. Y’know, retreating to your TV set an watching re-runs of old series that you’ve already seen, or a DVD box-set of something in times of stress or anxiety, and just letting yourself be immersed in that world for a little while whilst you come to terms with whatever has happened to so unbalance you. He suggests that this is something only established by the 80’s generation, due to television playing such a large part in the lives of pretty much everyone since the 80’s. He wonders if maybe this is something now built in to the Human condition, and will be used by future generations as a form of therapy.
This got me thinking about whether I do the same thing, and I do in a way. Thinking back on times of grief and turmoil in my own life, I can clearly identify the things I’ve done to cope, and allow me to survive these periods without cracking up. But they don’t involve television or DVD’s. Rather pretentiously, I seek solace primarily in books.
After my brother died, I began reading Terry Pratchett’s excellent Discworld novels – Pyramids, to be precise. I’d never read these books before, but my Father had, and I think that fact was almost a subconscious re-assurance, knowing that he’d read them, and in me doing so I had his support. That book retains a special place in my heart for getting me through those dark days, and for not only drawing me into the Discworld saga, but also re-booting my love of reading.
Looking at later periods of stress (none quite as bad as the first!), I can see that I’ve added another method of support to my repertoire – video games. I know, that sounds pretty lame, right? Well, it is. I’m one of those people that can become fully engrossed in a game world. From Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, through to Halo, I immerse myself in the world created in the game. I’ll look up stats and background online, read novels; just allow myself to live that world vicariously for a while. So it’s no wonder really that I often use the same games as a way to mitigate stressful times in my own life. What better way to make my own troubles seem trifling than staving off an alien assault on Earth, or battling hordes of bloodthirsty Orcs?
It all really boils down to escapism, and briefly forgetting our own lives to experience something else. That’s the whole reason make-believe is such a large part of Human life. Childhood Fairy tales, literary classics, Hollywood blockbusters, next generation video games; they’re all ways of suspending belief, and getting away from our own mundane lives for a while, and living someone else’s. Seeing what they see, meeting who they meet. Feeling and experiencing things beyond the frame of our day-to-day lives.
Hmm, I seem to have gone from talking about coping mechanisms to theorising on the nature of escapism in the Human Condition. Apologies, I don’t mean to lecture you all!
Anyway, anyone else use similar methods? Or perhaps something different?
TTFN
Not Your Average Geek 