Escapism

Notes

Claim

Escapism is like a deep personal Distraction. When chosen, often subconsciously, to avoid doing or facing something by focusing on something else.

Explanation

Escapism often leads to a Harmful actions reinforce themselves through self-perpetuating feedback loops. By avoiding our problems and focusing on something else, we usually intensify those problems. We choose Denial is choosing a false view to avoid painful truths over actively trying to solve them. It is a form of We prefer immediate benefits over delayed ones, where we push our troubles to future us for gaining some peace in the present. It could transform into a harmful Addiction is escapism that destroys self-control, will lead to bad Positioning, and can easily lead to Depression is chronic despair from helplessness and lost meaning.

We embrace Helplessness is perceiving no control over circumstances and outcomes by believing that the situation is too much to handle, that it's bigger than us, that it will destroy us.

Why it matters

Examples

A person with a failing marriage might double down on their career.

Trying to drown our emotions over a bad relationship with alcohol will only worsen the state of our relationship, which will increase the need for more alcohol, and so on.

A common escapism which seems harmless and even nice at first is We look to the past when the future is unclear, we focus on the "good times" we had, forgetting all the problems we had and try to revert ourselves back to our "happy place". Usually nostalgia is embedded in our childhood, when incidentally we were also safe and happy without a care in the world, exactly the place we want to be in now instead of facing the harsh reality.

Supporters

Opposers

Open questions

Visual

Overview

🔼Topic:: Avoidance and Defense Mechanisms ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::