reality is overrated

What is the number one leisure activity among Americans? It's not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with family. People usually describe sex as their most pleasurable act, but surveys have shown that the average American devotes just four minutes per day to sex—almost exactly the same time spent filling out tax forms for the government.

Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real. When we are free to do whatever we want, we retreat to the imagination—to worlds created by others--with books, movies, games, myth, religion.

Why? Well the obvious reason is that reality sucks. Life sucks. You work 40 hours a week at a job you hate, you get nagged constantly by your aging wife, your kids don't appreciate the back-breaking work you do to put food on the table, and your health and looks are going down the drain day by day. Although you live in the richest and most prosperous country the world has ever seen, with all the conveniences of modern technology, many of us at our first opportunity run away from reality and flock straight toward our televisions, our books, our computers, and our Playstations.

As technology continues to advance and its virtual and unreal worlds become better and more real, this trend will continue on. I foresee a Matrix-like existence for many of us in the near future.