Fantasy vs Reality

Is it dangerous to spend time in a fantasy realm through reading, painting, games, or even just imagining other worlds? Should we be more practical in times where our physical reality is at risk? Should we then be learning skills, staying away from mystical thinking and concentrating on the sciences, on what can be measured?

If we look back in history, in times where life was far more precarious than for most of us today, we would find a time of mystical stories, of gatherings around the fire where the elders told of giants, dragons, angels, fairies, beasts that lurked in the dark, mystical beings who would save humans. Often the people danced and sung these stories. The images of their stories are carved and painted on rocks all around the world. These kind of stories are in every culture. Sometimes they are called religions and sometimes fairy tales, but they are always there.

Today we more often have movies, games, and books rather than gatherings around the campfire; but inspiring the imagination in the young through magic, tales of daring-do, the rewarding of good, and bad getting its just desserts are they less important? What is a world without imagination? When we become old, the power of our own imaginations may be one of our more enjoyable pursuits. Is that so wrong?

Sometimes mythical stories have lessons from which we can learn but that's not all of what is important about them. What if life really does end at death? Supposing it is dust to dust? If so, whatever we have made and created while we are alive is all we will ever have. Imagining the mystical, seeing fairies, thinking angels intervene to save people, all of these things could be part of a full experience of life-- one that goes beyond the biological to another realm. Does that realm have to be real for it to have value?

I wish I could come up with a better way to explain this. I think that if we get lost in a fantasy realm, then it is unhealthy; but letting it into our imaginations is not.

When I watch a movie or read a book full of mystical events (think Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter), things I don't see in the world around me, I think it gives me something that the daily grind can't. I might still have to face questions of finances, of illness, of problems with the animals, government, and many other problems; but for a few hours I am living in another world.

The story of say Daniel in the Lion's Den only becomes bad if we think we can walk into a lion's cage and expect angels to close the lion's mouth. If instead we appreciate the story for what it was, a wonderful tale full of power, glory which might or might not be historic, then we get a piece of that for ourselves as those feelings work vicariously through us. It is letting the mystical in but not becoming confused by it which is part of maturity.

Of course, you can say I would think this way. I am a bit fey and feel it is part of my writing and art to be that way, but I also think it makes me the woman I am today-- one who still believes that all there is might not be all I can see-- and who takes joy in that belief.

The art is mine. On top, is a digital paintings, from awhile back, depicting a dream I had once where a woman had to flee from one world and in another learned to use powers she hadn't dreamed were possible.

The oil painting below is a woman sitting in front of a fire. The painting is about her not needing to see behind her to know that there is something in the flames. If she turned, would the image still be there?