"Romanticizing Your Life"

Lately I've been thinking about how I've been navigating my life all this time. Like, what is my compass? When I'm given two choices in front of me, on what ground do I decide one or the other? Because then again, life is all about choices. every second we have to face a decision: processed sugar or whole food, cooking or eating out, scrolling through social media or doing something productive?

I think it has everything to do with what I prioritize most.

And I'm so disappointed to tell you that all this time, I think I've been prioritizing the wrong thing.

---

This notion of 'Romanticizing Your Life' is so appealing to me, it circles around the idea that you are the main character of your own life.

Doesn't it feel great to think that we are the main characters of our own lives?

It does. But it doesn't, at the same time. Why? Because main characters, in real life, they don't exist. It's just not realistically possible for us, normal people, to compare ourselves with main characters from books or movies. While fictional MC's are quite literally the center of their universe, we are not!

But to be quite honest, I did romanticize my life. A lot. I did think I'm the main character of my life. And there's a feedback loop going on inside my head: my hobby of watching movies and this idea of 'Romanticizing My Life' feeds into each other, making each other more deadlier than before.

You see, realism and coming of age movies are my favorites. Realism, because I believe they genuinely take real life experiences and put them into movies; and Coming of age, because that's where I am right now, I'm coming of age (25 to be exact). 

And I watch them like they're my bible, I study the main characters, I want to know how they behave, their development, because I might merge their characters with mine, I might just learn a thing or two about life lessons from watching these movies.

But you may already see how this would go wrong.

This is basic knowledge. But movies, for God's sake, aren't even real.

They may seem real, feel real, there may be real human elements that they portray. But we shouldn't forget the fact that these movies go through countless process to be able to make it into our computer screen--script writing, revising, shooting, editing, scoring, etc. These movies are engineered to appeal to their audience, making them feel this trance-like feeling, making them feel 'I can relate to this' when in reality, we can't compare real life experiences to their version of hyperrealism.

Yep, hyperrealism. 

In a film, hyperreality is primarily a visual language as it works better with images in order to give a hyperreal experience to the audience. An Individual is taken to the hyperreal scenario by images which showcase his/her desires and needs. The study questions whether the world shown by the media is reel or real.

https://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-access/hyperreality-as-a-theme-and-technique-in-the-film-truman-show.pdf 

 --

When I think about main characters, I think about those characters that at the end of the day, always get what they want. They may fuck up once, be a bitch twice, but at the end of the day, the universe conspire to give them a happy ending most often than not. I mean, their lives look amazing, no? Coffee milk every morning, cafe dates, aesthetic bedroom, nice outfits, great gadgets, even at a low point in their lives they manage to look flawless.

I'd like to think that that's how our world works, but it doesn't. Our life doesn't have an audience, for God's sake our life isn't even a performance. Our lives isn't meant to be appealing. And most importantly, while main characters are often "encouraged" to follow their desires and voile happy ending--we oftentimes don't have that freedom.

And I don't mean to say that we shouldn't follow our desires, it's just that, unlike main characters, we don't have to do it every time. And this brings me to my first point: in order to make the right life choices, what do you prioritize most?

I've been romanticizing my life, so I prioritize feeling good, somehow. Because that's what I take from main characters in movies: they reach their goals when they feel good all the time.

But this is a hard pill to swallow, I even had a mini breakdown when I realized this. But now I do believe that we don't have to feel good all the fuckin time.

When we prioritize feeling good all the fuckin time, we risk ourselves to fall into this rabbit hole called 'instant gratification'. I mean, studying, exercising, eating whole food, restricting your portion, and holding down a job 8 hours a day doesn't feel good, does it? It doesn't feel romantic for that matter, like, at all. But that's what gives our lives meaning, actually.

Again, we don't have to feel good all the fuckin time.

We just have to make sure that all the fuckin time, what we do give meanings to our lives in the long run.

---

Be grounded.

Life isn't all that romantic, life sometimes is just... life, with its responsibilities that we have to show up for.

A happy life isn't guaranteed, but we shouldn't even strive for that either. Life should feel meaningful, I think that's what we should prioritize most in our lives.

And what is a meaningful life?

That, we should personally ask ourselves. My answer, though, lies in QS 2:30.