The Opinionated Ones: How to Deny Reality (Geraldine Phillips)

There are plenty of ways to deny reality. People tell us to grow up, get a job, put food on the table, pay bills and own your mortgage. That is a reality. But does it have to be your reality? They say it takes all kinds of people to make this big world go round. Different strokes. Humans have had to adapt to the life of hardships and struggles alongside wealth and happiness. Sometimes the scales tip favourably or unfavourably but that alone is not an indication of personal triumphs or failures.

So how does one deny reality? Perhaps you can get lost in daydreams. People might think you are mad and irresponsible. Some might say it is the Peter Pan syndrome. But you know that you are going to a place everyone once was in their childhoods or even in their sweetest dreams. Smug in that knowledge that only the brave abandon modern ideas. The escapist thinks of nothing but a better place. Michael Jackson was a well-known escapist. He was constantly escaping into another world, one that didn’t make sense to the rest of the world. Sadly, we have no capacity to live beyond the norms that have been dictated to us.

To deny reality, one needs to know how to strike a delicate balance. One needs to have the courage to follow one’s heart and not one’s head. One needs to use common sense and not get completely lost in the clouds because then you are dealing with the very cold reality of an insane asylum.

Denying reality can simply be ignoring the petty, mundane routines of life like getting up, having breakfast and going off to work. Why not try getting up and going to dinner for once (yes, at 11am) and then going off horse-riding or mountain-climbing? Try walking or biking to work for once, regardless of how impractical or unfeasible it is. When you turn up late for work/school, say that it is the price you are willing to pay for less carbon dioxide in the environment. Denying reality does not have to be self-indulgent. It takes a bit of courage, a lot of imagination and the will to see it through. Maybe then, I will not be the only dreamer on earth.