There is a scene in the movie Inception which I’ve never forgotten, because I think it perfectly captures the situation of our modern culture, especially when it comes to our interaction with mass visual media. In the movie, there is a technology which lets people roam around in their own (and others’) unconscious, creating whatever worlds they want to inhabit, for as long as they want to be there. At one point, the main character happens on a room where a bunch of people are sleeping and using this technology, and he learns that every day after work they come straight here and do this all night. He asks, “They come here just to go to sleep?” and the reply he gets is: “They come here…to wake up!”
Think about that for a moment. The picture is of a people who don’t like their actual lives, and want to live instead in false worlds in their minds, and so they live their real lives to get back to their fake lives, because their fake lives are more preferable than their real lives. And so they’ve told themselves that their real lives are not who they really are, but that their pretend lives are the life they’re really living.
I thought about this recently when I read this definition of pop culture (and pop entertainment) in an article by Robert Koons. He writes:
“Pop entertainment is a purely commercial enterprise, an imitation and perversion of folk culture. It is addictive but transitory, appealing to an appetite for novelty and distraction. Pop entertainment is truly the opiate of the masses in a leveling society: numbing, anesthetic, escapist.”
Those last three words he uses are important, and, I think, spot on: Numbing, anesthetic, and escapist. Designed to deaden you sensitivity to the real world, and make you unable to feel it. Designed to put make you unaware of your surroundings, and put you to sleep in terms of the world around you. Designed to help you ignore and leave the real world. Directly opposed to true feeling and sensitivity, true awareness, and true engagement.
In other words, the technology in Inception is a perfect metaphor for our modern media, pop-culture, and pop-entertainment. People love pop-entertainment, don’t they? Aren’t many, many people in America right now in a situation where they trudge through days they consider boring, meaningless or even painful, just so they can get to the lives they consider their “real” lives–their gaming or their shows or their parties or their TV sports? No judgment here–just recognition. It’s not being critical to notice that this is, in fact, the case.
But it is tragic. Why? Because human life wasn’t created to be escaped; it was created to be lived. It wasn’t created to feel less real and meaningful than fantasy. As Christians, we’ve begun to discover the truth that reality is better than fantasy. And we’re committed to experiencing and spreading the knowledge of that life-changing truth everywhere.
Sure, we might read a work of fantasy or watch a movie (like say, some good old Tolkien or Lewis). Fantasy works, like all fiction, can illuminate things about the real world, and make profound points about actual truths. They can be great food for the mind, especially in book form. But followers of Jesus don’t live in fantasy worlds, because the real world God made is better–more alive, more rewarding, more meaningful. To follow Jesus is to respond to an invitation to turn away from all fantasy-lies, and from preferring even “good” fantasy to reality, and instead, to embrace the real world and our real place in it. It’s better. And it’s what we were made for.
Can I make a suggestion for the new year? If this particular subject affects you…
- …if you take an honest look at your life and realize that there is some pretend world in a book or TV show or movie or video game that you prefer over the real world…
- …if there are fantasy worlds you spend more time thinking about than the real world…
- …if you regularly fill up your “free time” living in a fantasy world, instead of doing things in the real world…
- …if there are pretend things you honestly prefer over your actual life…
…take some time as 2018 closes and 2019 begins, and talk to God about all of that. Ask him to reignite your interest in, and passion for, the real world. Ask him to impress on you the best thing about the real world–that God himself dwells in it, ready to reveal himself and work on behalf of those who seek him. Ask him to show you, freshly, how purpose and meaning and the hope of Christ’s return and the presence of the Spirit and the real risk and even more real reward of living a life pointed towards the coming Kingdom of God all add up to make the real world the best possible place in which to be alive.