(Intermission Part Deux)

(And yes, the Wellington posts with pictures are still coming)

This week I’ve been dealing with my addiction to fiction.

After sitting one night realizing how much time I spend reading, watching movies, watching tv shows, being invested in fictional characters, and talking with others who have the same interests, the thoughts started to annoy me.

I mean, here I am in New Zealand. When I was at home I was daydreaming about coming here. I’m always daydreaming about faraway places and the adventures I’ll go on when I get there. And now I’m HERE. I’m ON my grand adventure. And all I want to do half the time is curl up and immerse myself in someone else’s life! How can that be?

I can’t remember a time when I WASN’T a bookworm, or out in the backyard playing pretend, or staring out the window daydreaming. I think, for whatever reason, this is just part of who I am. And I think part of that is a good thing; it’s part of my creativity. But the problem comes in when the fiction starts to take you away from real life. From this moment, now.

A lot of the awareness that I’ve been trying to foster, and the meditation and prayer that I try to practice, is based in the knowledge that the present moment is the only one in which you can act. The past is done, the future is uncertain at best, but NOW you can think and feel and do. And when I realize I’ve just spent a large part of my day living in fantasy, I wonder what it is I could have been doing instead.

I think part of my problem is that I associate the word “happiness” with an ideal state that you can achieve, and not with a constant state of joy in which I can live. In the back of my mind I believe that I’ll know I’ve achieved happiness when I’m in a place where I’m no longer daydreaming of something better.

I think that’s part of what I’m looking for, on this journey: that definition of happiness. Finding a place where I think “yes, there is no better place than this.” A place where I don’t want anything more than what is in front of me.

But is that realistic? Ok, bad choice of words when discussing fiction. I mean, is that…healthy? I don’t know that I ever will be in a place where I stop dreaming, and if I am, will that mean I’ve lost the creative part of myself? And if I lost my creative side, would I really be happy?

And clearly I’m a bit TOO caught up in my thoughts if I’m going around in circles like this.

I guess when it comes down to it, I feel bad for spending time enjoying something that has me sitting on my butt instead of “doing,” and I’m not sure if I should change things, or just let myself be. Or something in between the two.