Fantasy What's a fantasy. What purpose does it serve? We devote large parcels of our lives dreaming these up and chasing after them. It parallels the pursuit of evening shadows that keep getting farther away till all fades into dark. We are unique as humans; meat mated with minds. We seek simple pleasures adorned by the mind's inventive tassels. If we are to strive for a consciousness not made murky by the fumes of desire arising from the more animistic parts, should we strip down fantasies into their elements to dissolve and delusions that block our view?

We chase fantasies all through our young adulthood. We might be far too self-absorbed to realize so, only to be forced to look through someone else's lens later on. Does that happen? I hope it does! Fantasies in movies, especially Bollywood ones, are absolute sucker punches derived from squeezing together every attribute attractive to man or woman. What do the people sitting in projector beam lit dark of the theater lust after? The stud with the expressive eyes and malleable facial expressions that constantly morph into quasi-equilibrium facets of love, stable barely long enough for us label before melting away? Or do they lust after the gorgeous girl who interestingly is often boringly attractive. The fantasies peddled to men seem far too predictable, and often nothing beyond the physically attractive. Brat packs sell independence and a surfeit of sex, which is again boring. Fantasies peddled in the package of the male protagonist are far more interesting and, it seems, numerous. A studly stubble, alternating with a clean chiseled chin, and abs if this is the post millennial generation--the older ones only needed anger and passion lasered from smoldering eyes. A glamorous occupation that allows for an indie fashion sense, some sweeping shots that zoom in from panoramic expansion into the intense and commandeering facial twitches of the actor. Then, more sweeping shots of starkly sterile European streets and the Alps and skyscrapers, a layering of machismo enabled by a fleet of stunt performers, and the deal clinching voice of Sukhwinder Singh. You have this fictional construction that absolutely hits every key on the neural keyboard and is enthralling, and continuing to hold you in thrall long after in the warmth of this figment's memories. Interesting, this thing that exists only in the interiors of our minds holds us so powerlessly captive. Is this unreachable fiction pulling us taut in different directions, or a balm that soothes the rude impression reality has made on our skins. Are we still that delicate and body-bound that things can so easily prick us so? Do fantasies disappoint us by providing an illusory context to reality? Or do they help keep our dreams, and by extension us, afloat by making vivid a hope that compels us to trudge on? And what is to be made of the weird misery of one who actually has it all? Or the placid hesitation of one who suddenly wakes up realizing any more would be in surplus?  ¶ 12:32 AM