I think I know why we have been seeing so many fantasy movies hit
the big screen recently. Perhaps they've always been there, and I had gone without noticing. That is not hard.
I saw before me a fantasy world, one so large and massive it gave the illusion of eternal space within our own planet, our own world which is simply one of many, after we'd been taught there were others. I saw green fields and rivers running through a deep crevasse, white mountains of snow and thickly wooded forest edged with marshes in the deepest of color. I saw majestic creatures, all nearing human in form. I tried to determine which scenes were taken from real places and which were created from within a human mind, which in itself derived from what it knew of nature, and the world around it, most of which most of us no longer see.
We seek these out, these worlds, I think, because our own world so often pales in comparison. We can't help it. The worlds we have created to protect ourselves are, by indication of our own imaginations, never enough. It is amusing, and sad sometimes, how we shortchange ourselves. As the view panned over these places so far above me, the only thoughts that first came to me were the once of an urban mind: how would I ever survive in such a place? Would my body know how to function when my mind was rendered unable to cope, given the instructions I've been given from birth. Everything I know is wrong.
And yet, we all still long for some fantasy, when we are not brave enough to seek it out whole. Our film tonight reminded me that I don't read nearly enough, that I have not been taken from my own world nearly enough so as to cope with it, where I have ended up.
It is easy to scoff at those who can afford guided trips through rough terrain, game hunting and adventure seeking. It is very easy for me, as well. In addition, I cannot help but envy them. To drive around any section of dilapidated urban ruin is to see the aching emptiness of modern man as a modern failure. To see all the ways modern life has failed us, robbed us of some basic needs and replaced them with others. But we cannot dwell on these things. We must push on, and still keep on reaching out for dreams. We must.