In the real world

Sometimes I'm told that I'm lazy or boring for wanting to just stay at home all day watching TV shows or movies, or reading books. I guess you could say that's true, but I only ask that you wait for my reasons before you judge me.

Reality is boring sometimes. The real world gets boring and so we seek different worlds, more exciting worlds, worlds in television shows, movies, books, plays, tons of things. I like to escape reality sometimes and get captured in the thrill of it all. I like seeing what people's imaginations can conjure. Magic wands and potions, lasers and space cowboys, pie makers who can make the dead alive again; these things excite me and inspire me to imagine my own fantasies. I love storytelling. I love good characters more than almost anything, so when I find a show that writes its characters well, I appreciate it.

Other times, we need to know that our reality is better than alternates. I watch Dollhouse and shudder and think "what if." It reassures me when I see people screwing up in fantasy worlds because they screwed up too. I like it when characters aren't perfect; they're people. You follow the choices they make and sometimes you agree with them and sometimes you don't, but either way, you enjoy watching them grow and change. I get very connected with characters in shows and movies. I think I have a very large capacity to suspend disbelief. I feel close to the worlds I encounter and observe. When a character messes up or does something we didn't want them to do, we watch them learn from their mistakes. When they do something wonderful that we've been waiting all season for, we celebrate and see that we can move forward as well.

Another great thing about these realities is the fact that no matter what genre you watch or read, you encounter the same very human conflicts. It doesn't matter if you're in the world of Firefly, 500 years or so into the future, or Merlin, way back in the time of King Arthur (well, slightly before his time), you see the same issues at the root of these shows. In LOTR and Star Trek, we see the same things. This grounds movies and shows in the reality that you and I are familiar with just by being humans.

I love sharing the worlds I find. I cherish them and love them, and to share a good story with someone is so wonderful, which is why I want to make it my life by going into theatre. Everyone interprets things slightly differently, which makes it so cool to watch something with a huge group of friends and then talk about how it moved you all in different ways. The same can be said about a good book, I'm just generalizing here. My dad and I share our love of stories, and even though some people don't think of the time we spend together as "quality time," I strongly disagree. We sit down and suspend disbelief together. We let shows touch us and move us and anger us. We let characters into our hearts and minds. And then we get all riled up when we talk about them, it's wonderful!

Dad and I sometimes just conk out in front of a screen for hours. And maybe some people don't get it, but I think we learn more about each other by witnessing these stories and seeing each other's reactions to them than we do by having some pointless conversation about something neither of us particularly cares to talk about. I love seeing the good in people and in shows. Or seeing the spark of similarity between a friend and a character. My dad wrote me a letter one time that moved me to tears. It was about a lot of things, but part of it was about these stories that we share, and he wrote a page telling me how I was like certain parts of certain characters. I wish I could do the same for him without just seeming like a copycat.

Stories are something to be treasured, and while I agree that I spend far too much time in front of glowing boxes, I do treasure the stories I see and read.

Sometimes we learn more about ourselves than we realize when we see a character go through an all too familiar situation. Pay attention next time. You'll see.

-T.A.D.