The Bitter Truth of Fantasy: A Poisoned Escape
Why is fantasy-making harmful? At first glance, the question seems trivial, even naïve, but buried within it lies a bitter and venomous truth. Fantasy—this childish game of the mind—is no innocent indulgence. It is a parasite, a silent rot that gnaws at the roots of reality, hollowing it out from within. I, who have floundered in this mire for years, now stand at thirty-one, staring into the abyss of my own illusions. And I see it clearly now: this mental deception is no harmless game, but a chain that has bound my soul, dragging it deeper into the shadows of its own making.
From the earliest days of my childhood, my mind sought refuge in a world of fantasy, as though the real world—with all its cruelty and indifference—was too hostile to inhabit. I imagined myself a superhero, destined to save the world. But now, in the barren wasteland of adulthood, I have learned a bitter lesson: the world does not need saving. It is I who must rise from the ashes of these sickly daydreams, who must shatter the chains of these illusions and free myself from the prison of my own mind.
These fantasies, like a slow-acting opiate, took root in me from an early age. The cartoons I watched, the stories of princes and princesses, lured me into a world where everything was possible, but nothing was real. Walt Disney, the master craftsman of dreams, built a factory of illusions, a workshop of delusions that seized the minds of children and held them captive. Little girls, enchanted by these tales, grew up believing themselves to be princesses, their destinies written in castles, their salvation tied to the arrival of some mythical prince. But where are these princes? Do they exist? Or are they nothing more than mirages, shimmering on the horizon, luring the soul deeper into the desert of longing, only to leave it thirsting for something it will never find?
Kierkegaard once said, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” But these fantasies, these illusions, shield us from that anxiety, from the terrifying awareness of our own freedom. They lock us in a gilded cage, where freedom is not liberation but a mirage, defined by the false promises of dreams. And so, many remain trapped, even into middle age, waiting for a prince who will never come, clinging to a dream that was never real.
And what of the “missing half”? Where does this insidious idea come from? Plato, in his Symposium, speaks of souls split in two, forever searching for their other half. But is this myth anything more than a desperate justification for human loneliness? Nietzsche, with his unflinching clarity, reminds us: “We need lies to make life bearable.” And this idea of the missing half is one of those lies—a soothing deception that keeps us from confronting the truth of our existence. It sends us chasing phantoms, forever searching for something that never was and never will be.
Fantasy not only alienates us from reality, but it also alienates us from ourselves. Hedayat, in his Blind Owl, writes, “There are wounds in life that, like a leprosy, silently devour the soul in solitude.” And perhaps one of these wounds is the fantasy that separates us from what is real. Sweet on the surface, these illusions rot us from within, leaving behind a bitterness that no dream can ever heal.
Let us face the truth: there is no prince on the way. There is no missing half. We are alone, cast adrift in this cold and merciless world. But this solitude, this lostness, is not a curse. Kierkegaard saw in it the path to freedom. “Only by embracing absurdity can we find meaning,” he tells us. And this, then, is our task: to accept reality, no matter how harsh, no matter how painful. So, let us awaken. Let us tear apart these chains of illusion and confront the world as it is.
Nietzsche reminds us, “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” And perhaps it is only in this confrontation with reality—this breaking of the dream’s spell—that we can find the strength to live, not in some fantasy, but in the raw, unadorned truth of existence.
For in the end, what else is there? The dream fades, the veil is lifted, and we are left standing before the void. But perhaps, in that void, there is something waiting—not salvation, not a prince, but the chance to finally become ourselves.
