How many people do you think are able to do this?
Living in a phantasy world starts with being a very youg child( I am convinced that children do this all the time and develop a lot af skills this way)- how do you find the right time to jump off and start taking live serously and know your SELF so you can protect it? And how do you know what is save anyway? Trial and error?

Thanks for your contribution Marty, much appreciated…

That said, I have been watching Merlin on BBC One a bit too much lately. But that has more to do with the woman who plays Morgana than anything else. If there’s some place you can go to apply to be her brave knight, I’ll be there in a flash. Right, enough about all that.

I was always more of a Doctor Who fan. Always wanted to be The Doctor. Travel anywhere in space and time, new woman every few months and the only serious enemies are basically pepper pots that can fly.

As for the darkness in escapism. Yeah, sure, it’s there. But there are an awful lot of people who think they know what the real world is. I’m not even sure the term “real world” holds up as a concept. So long as the person is not lost to whichever world they find themselves in or enjoy being in, not much harm can come from escapism. If you play World of War Craft but still know your own name, your family, your friends and who you are, that’s fine. Whatever a person enjoys doing- so long as it harms, hurts or humiliates nobody- is perfectly fine. Darkness does not necessarily come from escapism. Darkness can find you anywhere. Indeed, these days it’s more likely to find you in the so called “real world” than it is in any fantasy world.

The world you inhabit doesn’t matter. Where you escape to doesn’t matter. What matters is the protection and survival of the self. If the self is intact, you can change things or break out of a world that could cause hurt or harm. The self is the important thing. I speak to a lot of people who think that, because they enjoy playing computer games on a weekend and the like instead of getting out of their trees on booze in bars and nightclubs, that some how means they are sad or losers or loners. If you truly enjoy something and it brings pleasure to your life and it harms, humiliates and hurts none, it’s 100% fine. Indeed, the more varied stuff you do and enjoy, the more interesting a person you are.

Note: my lawyers have asked me to point out that my definition of “if it hurts, harms and humiliates none” also includes the words: “so long as it is legal”.