Escape via Microcosmic Genesis

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts

I’m becoming more aware of how we create new realities within our existing worlds to escape.  I have noticed that I gravitate towards new ventures and new toys to distract me from the crap that is bugging me.  Whether I’m bothered by the stressful, the disheartening, or the simple monotony, I have a tendency to fixate on and become obsessive about new things to distract me from my life.  Just look at this list of some of the things that I’ve obsessed about:

• an XBOX,
• or Halo,
• or creating a baby name game website,
• or making a new brick patio,
• or Media Center wired into our house,
• or a new voiceover business,
• or a new podcast project,
• or a podcast convention,
• or a new TV,
• or a new Zune,
• or an XBOX 360 
• or another web project,
• or another new podcast project.
• or a marionette project.

When I start one of these projects, I’m creating a world-in-a-world in which I can hide from the realities of being a GIANT BABY.  Really, I’m just a giant baby who doesn’t want to be told what to do, when or how to do it.  I only enjoy work that’s fun to do, and I whine and complain about work that is not fun to do.  That pretty much sums it up.

When your life gets crappy and burdensome, are you seduced by the refreshing distraction of a new relationship?  Some unlucky people delve into the unsavory realm of intrapersonal love affairs, and others (like me) begin obsessive love affairs with objects,projects, & things. 

There’s a fine line between healthy obsession and destructive fixation; its been my experience that the latter is often signified by an underlying false hope that goes either undetected or consciously ignored by the “victim.”

So assuming that I can tell the difference between a healthy obsession and a destructive fixation, and assuming that I partake in only the healthy kinds of obsession, here’s the question:  How do I turn this proclivity to an asset?  How do I consistently leverage my frequent obsessions into successes? 

I’ve seen the positive potential of my escapism with the podcast project and voiceover business that I started on a lark. Can I sharpen some skills to increase me “hit rate,” or is it as much luck as it is skill?  Maybe its true that “successful people” are just “idiots who don’t give up.”

Are all entrepreneurs prone to escapism, and do they all seek to create new worlds in which they can escape from what’s bugging them? I did exactly that in December 2004.

Leading up to that, 2003 through 2005 were crappy years for me; my career was miserable and unrewarding, my home life was a bit stressful with the usual obligations and kids, and my wife and I had tried a couple of business startup ideas that didn’t take off the way that we wanted/expected them to.  I needed to reinvent myself because I sure as hell didn’t like who I was at the time.

Between December 2004 and October 2006, I created and published “Podcheck Review,” a less-than-weekly radio show (read “podcast”) recapping the news from the podcasting world, with a hint of sarcasm and the fresh taste of lemon.  I look back on that time with affection, and marvel at how many people subscribed to the show, and how genuinely cool the people were.  I met some amazing people over those two years.  I still do voiceover work for the podcatastophere, and I still threaten to produce another podcast show, but it will never be the same as it was in 2005 when 1,700 people downloaded the Podcheck Review each week.

So, on the proverbial seventh day, I rested.  I stopped producing the podcast show in October 2006, embodying the term “podfader” that I had coined in June 2005.   I had spent the previous proverbial “six days” (24 months) creating a world unto itself, and crafting an online persona for Scott Fletcher as the sarcastic and steadfast voice of podcast news.

Why did I stop living in my alternate podcast reality?  The same reason as everyone else: My real life grew too hectic to indulge in the fantasy, and the fantasy did not pay the mortgage.  My wife and I added a new kid to the family, my work life became insanely busy, and there was simply no more free energy available!  I chose to walk away from the microcosm that I had fabricated from the parts of my soul that had so desperately needed attention.

I’d like to think that I no longer need that alternate reality, my own kind of virtual “man cave” in which I rule over all that I survey, but I find myself once again looking for another obsession to take its place…

If I can time it right, I will try to make my real life my new obsession, and turn the real/alternate thing upside down… but I’ll probably just buy a new XBOX 360 and a big screen TV.