The Stigma of Escapism
[Music]
when the source of your lifelong passion
stems from an idea looked down on by
almost everyone around you
it can get tough to explain yourself you
feel invalidated
like your passion shouldn’t be what you
succeed with because of its
misunderstood definition
but what most people tend to not know is
the separation between the good and the
bad
i’m a living example of the good and i
have my story to prove it
when i was around five years old my
parents were constantly fighting
it’s always a rough thing to see
something in front of you fall apart so
seamlessly but at an age where you
believe you could have done something
it was easily one of the lowest points
of my life
my situation wasn’t anything i could act
upon including the financial turmoil of
having only
one wallet rather than two that set my
family into a homeless shelter
the first christmas i remember ever was
in those walls
and my journey began when i got my first
notebook from under the christmas tree
before school i was a social hermit i
didn’t even form words until i was three
and when i did i would hardly use them
my source of expressing myself
came from my immediate interest in
drawing it was the easiest way to
explain myself that i couldn’t with
normal words
through my toddlerhood i drew almost
every single day
and it didn’t stop there elementary
school was harsh on me
no one really understood me in my quiet
voice and most didn’t bother trying to
understand me through my drawings
even then no matter what names i got
called how much dirt i got kicked in my
face or
how many pages of mine were ripped
straight from their bindings for the fun
of it
i kept drawing it was the only thing
i had all to myself
when middle school came around i decided
to switch districts
i couldn’t imagine myself another day
with the kids i grew up with
so i transferred myself into a school
which i still attend today
when i first got there i immediately
found my group and slowly gained a
personality from the ability to
communicate with what i did best
even then school transfers are never an
easy transition
no matter how much more of an
environment was for me
but i coped and i coped with art
this constant attention to this hobby is
a clear example of escapism
the stigma of my past this distraction
from the surroundings around me allowed
me to cope to this trauma i was going
through
in such a casual way most people can
hardly see any long-term inflictions of
everything i had to go through but
escapism is a touchy subject
the main reason it’s looked down on is
the idea that there’s only one variant
of it
which is the one that involves the
laziness and carelessness for situations
you can solve
i’m living proof that this is not the
case all the time
and that the word can be placed into two
versions of itself
the good and the bad the most
referenced variant i see is the bad when
people use escapism to distract
themselves from the tasks you can fix
simple tasks like chores and work are
responsibilities many do have control
over
yet choose not to work on it by fixing
it or distracting themselves with
something else
but then there’s the good it’s the act
of distracting yourself from problems
that you have little to no control over
my example consists of my drawing and
animation but
that’s just my passion one of the
largest examples of this is the
quarantine we all had to go through in
march of 2020.
all those hobbies people started to pick
up as the months flew by
was escapism you were distracting
yourself from the global pandemic no one
could really stop by themselves at any
given moment
talking about my passion my best ideas
have stemmed from the escapism i use to
get away from the uncontrollable issues
i’ve had in my past
with an example i’d like to introduce
naomi accoloid
a cool cybernetic political figure
that’s practically aged with me since
the beginning her character as well as a
story and environment
has changed as i’ve grown to understand
just why i made her the way she is today
she’s a social figure to so many others
yet hides away from the impossibles by
secluding her town from the problems she
knows
they would definitely go out trying to
fix
because of that she has a thriving city
to run and i can’t help but speculate
some sort of that connection
has some to my own story this idea of
escapism
helped me get to where i am now not only
am i this fun little character
explaining myself to this ted talk but
i’m also a bundle of surprises
in the working field of art i’ve
recently started to work on character
designs for tv shows appeared as a guest
on podcasts to interview people in the
industry
started gaining a source of income for
my illustrations
i’ve been recognized by certain idols
and celebrities
grown my own community of fans who enjoy
watching my individual projects and
works
and i seem to be the first ted talker to
independently write
and animate my own message
and i give that credit to the start of
it all
that tiny little gift at the bottom of
the christmas tree
that i got at the lowest point of my
life made the clay for me to mold myself
into
well me escapism helped me through
everything
and no matter how much i went through in
my life i always had a pencil and a
piece of paper to tell my story
this one the story of my life the story
of my escapism
and the story of me thank you
you