Before Sunrise

Escapism....we all seek it in one fashion or another. Be it watching hours of my mind numbing television, delving deep into some novel, surfing the internet, playing various games, or as many of us do here read and/or write a diary.

Now escapism is a much needed release of all all the stresses of the day, giving your mind the time to revel in the pleasures we come to love or to delve into a world we wish we where in instead. Its survival technique in today's society, to keep your sanity, it is neccassary to find something you truelly enjoy to escape the reality of life.

Which is part of the beauty of having a rich fantasy life. With that you don't need to set sometime aside to do it, you don't have to wait tell you get home and you don't have to worry about if you can afford to do it or not. Any time, any where you can just stop and day dream into the fantasy world(s) you have created in your mind. A world that everything goes how you wish it to be, you are that person you really wish you are. You are the hero of the lands, an influential member of society, a compasionate care giver, a healer of the sick, the perfect lover. What you can't make happen in reality, can be so in your fantasy.

Just sit back and think of this on a grand scale and you can see the shear awesomness of a fantasy life. A whole world intricately constructed to your specifications, all the things you can't stand in real life is either eliminated or something always happens to thwart said hatred. A world of unseen lands of great beauty, of people so amazing that they would be inconcievable in reality. Its like cramming all the movies in the world together and making it into a world. And all of this is in your very own head, safely tucked away for you to use anytime you can't handle reality or seeking some form of pleasure unatainable in reality.

Its a most fantastic idea.....but it has its flaws.

Now escapism a neccasity of life, but it seems that sometimes in a desperate need of a consistent escapism, we manage to pigeon hole people's work we enjoy, seeking that form of escapism we have come to expect from this person.

Let me clarify this a bit more.

Lets use a favorite and loved Uncle on here, good ol' Uncle Bob as our example.

Now we all know UB is a funny guy, has on more then one occasion had you laughing out loud at his stories or his way of putting things in a unique perspective. He is funny and intersting at the same time, and everyone loves to laugh, its a great form of escapism.

The thing is, we now have come to EXPECT him to make us laugh, and for many people, it just isn't as intersting if he doesn't elicite at least a chuckle or two out of them for each entry. Even Uncle Bob himself gets trapped in this idea when he puts down a entry for not being very funny, or says something about not being as funny lately as normal, which some how equates to sucky entries.

So now he seems to feel *I'm guessing by his entries* a need to be funny because its expected of him, instead of being funny for the right reasons....because he is. Now he feels the need to force himself to be funny or fear disapointment amongst his fans. So something that started fun and intersting became a chore....no longer is he making you laugh because he likes to make you laugh, but now he does it or some how he becomes "not as intersting" in the collective minds of his readers.

Another good example would be Weetabix's most recent entry Red Wine & Garlic Sauce, a more intense entry of hers. One of her best entries I have ever read on all of diary land. And since it was not funny, as she is commonly known to be, it was either not as good for some or made her nervous about putting it up, expecting from herself to be funny in the entry or fear some form of rejection from her readers who come to expect a few chuckles in there day from her.

And because so many of us desperately seek a consistent form of escapism, laughter being the best medicine for all that problems you in the world, we become upset when some one doesn't remain consistent to what you come to expect from them.

Which makes me wonder what else these people like Uncle Bob and Weetabix have to say, but feel they can't because ultimately its not funny. What pearls of wisdowm could they share, or great stories could the conjure if they where not hampered by this limitation.

In our need for escapism, have we missed out on something more fantastic from these people just because they're trapped in there roles?

I to have felt the need to be funny just to apease my readers, fearing that if I don't crank out something funny in between all my bland bullshit and constant need to bitch about the small things by turning them into a long, drawn out entry, that I'll start losing the interst of my readers, maybe lose a few of them.

Now personaly I think the majority of the time on here, I'm not all that funny. I do have my moments of inspiration, but over all I'm a lot funnier in real life. I rely to much on hand gestures, facial expressions, and strange noises to emphasize my point. Which is just about impossible to transfer all that in this kind of forum.

But in a way thats sort of liberating, if I am not consitently funny *like this entry for example* then I'm free to be funny or be contemplative or be bitchy all I want to and my readers come to expect this. Of course this has severly limited me on being all that popular in diary land, one of the "celebrities" here, and has kept me sort of in the shadows. Well that and because there is about a million other better writers here, but lets stick with things that bruise my ego the least...

Though despite this, I do have a few loyal *hoping* readers, some seem to be of this "celebrity" status. Which does go to show you that you may come to expect them to make you laugh, but thats not what they are all about.

And really, is it all about the quantity of your readers instead of the quality of your work.

Well yeah actually, its a harsh reality of the world, the more popular a person you are, the better person you become, at least in a lot of people's eyes.

Of course the more popular you become, the more people worm out of the wood works that absolutely hate you. Which then they spend there time bitching about how much you suck or how much other popular people suck, which has gotten people popular on the internet by doing this.....thus creating a vicious circle that feeds upon itself.

Now my point of this whole rabling entry is that sometimes we miss out the richer aspects of people and whats inside them because we are so hung up on what we come to expect from people.

I'm just hoping that despite these expectations, that people like Weetabix can put up entries like that without feeling guilty for not making you laugh. That the Uncle Bob's in the world don't feel supressed in order to keep the entries full of mirth.

Personally I would like to see more of this, but then again I'm only one man and one opinion in a world of millions...

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003