“without saying drugs or alcohol… what is the best way to escape reality?”

I think a better question is what is the best way to live in reality without wanting to escape? Now, before I continue, and I know what you’re thinking – “it’s not that deep bro” or “don’t go all philosophical on me now“. But, this question had me stumped for a long, long time. This question is the exact reason I was a chronic addict and had many attempts on my life. Also, I promise to answer your question, twice, actually.

When I say chronic addict, it doesn’t mean I am better or worse than other addicts. It means it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, the list goes on. The point is that I was unable to live in reality under any circumstances. Drugs weren’t necessarily my problem, but a solution to this exact question.

Addict or not, this question stumps a lot of us. So, what is reality, and who made it? My reality and your reality are different. The only commonality is that the idea of reality came from our minds. Our thoughts. Our reality is created by our senses, you would think. What you see, what you hear and so on. The problem is, our mind plays tricks on us. It tells us things that aren’t real. On top of that, our mind makes them so powerful and brilliant that we believe them.

So what you are really asking is, how can I escape my mind and thoughts? First of all, because YOU need to escape reality, you can agree the suffering is within YOU… YES. So my first answer is get away from you. Get out of self. Get into someone else. Think of someone else. Anyone but yourself.

“Well, what do you mean?”

I mean, it is impossible to suffer when I am thinking of someone else, because I am away from the problem, me.

“How do I do that?”

Well, that’s up to you, but I’ll give you an example.. Recall a time when you helped someone. Where was your mind? Where were your thoughts? Did you need to escape reality? Exactly…

Now, I know what your saying. This is impossible to achieve all the time. Of course, all I’m saying make life less about you. 

Back to the original dilemma. What is the best way to live without wanting to escape reality? We’ve established the problem. Reality, which we’ve constructed by our minds, is too much/painful. So, what if I just stopped my thoughts? Or as I used to think, chop off the top of my head.

We can’t, unfortunately (I KNOW, TERRIBLE!!!!). One of the top replies on this X post was meditation, which is not far off. Most people won’t jump to it because it requires a lot of effort. Plus, if you are new to it, you are basically just sitting with your thoughts and that makes it worse. Hence why we leap to quick fix, phone, social media, food and so on.

“To meditate”, before it progressed into what it is today, purely meant to ponder. Essentially, to be aware of your thoughts. Examine. Are these true? Do they serve me? More often than not, thoughts are a load of rubbish.

So the trick or solution, if you will, is to merely observe your thoughts. Not to attach. Remove yourself.

I remember a long time ago, I said to my psychologist (he said some famous author had the same experience), “I can’t live with myself. Who is I and who is myself that I can’t live with. There’s two?” “I” needs to just stop living with myself, then I could live… do you get it?

This doesn’t come easy and it’s a less is more type of thing. The harder you try to meditate, the less you can meditate. Learn to let go! Finally, reality is external but your perception of it is internal. So don’t worry about the external, focus on your internal; How you react, respond, or even absorb reality. Hope this made sense.

A Message From Jimmy