Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big fan of fantasy and sci-fi. I guess it comes from the fact that at heart I am a bit of a dreamer, and I like from time to time, to use these themes to escape from my problems, no matter what medium they are in. More often than not, I usually escape in to books or movies. I realise that is not very original, but it works for me and thats what matters. I would have to say my fondness for fantasy probably started when I was about 5 years old and I used to watch such shows like 'He-man' and 'Thundercats', and all those other great shows that kids used to watch in the late 80's. I remember I could sit for hours in front of the box, and just block out everything that was going on around me. Funnily enough that habit got me in to some quite amusing situations but also alot of trouble.
I have recently thought about why I love escaping in to these worlds of fantasy, and I have come to the following conclusion. When I was about 6 or 7 I went with my family to a planeterium, and whilest there under the lights I learnt about the nature of the universe as it was understood at the time. That was the first time I realised that everything must die, including the world, and more importantly at the time to me, my family. I remember afterwards I was shaking with fear, and my mother had to console me and assure me that everything would be ok. That was quite an experiance for me, and ever since then I have always had a fear of dieing, and so I believe this is perhaps part of why I enjoy escaping reality so much.
In these last few years my major fantasy fix has come from the discworld novels written by Terry Pratchett. I enjoy reading these stories so much mainly because they keep me laughing long after I have finished reading. Now that might sound strange to some, but actually it makes perfect sense. Normally I will read one of the novels and I will not really laugh that much, but then when I go out into the world and learn things I will suddenly realise that it was refrenced to in the novels, and often I will chuckle at how obvious a joke it was if only i had known at the time.
More recently though, and by this I mean in the last few days, I have achieved a goal that I set my self about 12 years ago. This was to purchase and play the card game 'Magic'. At the time it seemed to me as the ultimate in fantasy. The idea that I could pretend that I was some kind of wizzard and I could summon all these different beasts and spells to help me battle evil, seemed to me as the best thing ever. Now I never achieved this goal when I first set it, firstly because it was too expensive, but also because my parents felt I had enough things to keep me distracted from my studies - television, comic books. But anyway, recently I met a friend, and on my wave of post exam glee he was able to convince me to by some decks, which I am really glad he did because they are as fun to play with as I thought they would be. Though I do not believe I am a wizzard when I am playing
Post a Comment