When we watch the movies or read the books, the fiction we encounter is subject to a certain suspension of disbelief. It seems difficult to apply that same feeling to our “real” lives. Why? Why not? What’s the question?
It’s so easy to slip into identifying with the character on the page or screen. Of course, that’s part of how a good fiction works. After a good encounter with fiction, i have to shake myself out of it a bit, and return to the real world. Inevitably, reality seems a little stale in comparison. It’s so easy to imagine myself as the hero if the fiction, identifying with the failures and triumphs, passions and pitfalls. Outside of the fiction, i sometimes have a hard time identifying with the hero of my own reality.
Really, my own adventure is pretty freakin’ cool. The problem? Maybe it’s just that the fictions tend to gloss over the nuts and bolts. The adventuresome hero is seldom left washing their own socks, ever horribly hungover, or unable to find the correct screwdriver for the task at hand.
How does the saying go? Attitude is the difference between adventure and adversity? i’m remembering that my life is a grand adventure, that i am the hero of my own fiction, and that “reality” needn’t always be so intrusive. Not if i choose to not let it be…