i’m 17 years old, and as of today, i can genuinely say that i have developped through my teenage years a tv shows addiction. i am addicted to fiction, to fantasized characters, to romanticized situations, to stories.

and i can genuinely affirm that fiction is ruining my life.

fictionnal characters and stories are good for the mind. they help us escape things, they make us feel things that we wouldn’t feel normally, they provoke emotions and reactions in us that can be pretty strong and interesting. they make us explore ourselves, within the safety of our bed, couch or wherever we are -without even moving outside, without even being in contact with the real world.

books and tv shows give us expectations. they make us wish he had things we don’t, and sometimes, we’ll do anything to have it. fiction gives us expectations, and pushes us to the edge, makes us wanna fight to have what we want. because if it happened in fiction, why can’t it happen in real life ?

well here’s the thing. fiction makes us feel things, and want things, but mostly, they make us forget that these things exist outside of that little screen, too. and once you’re stuck in that little screen, there’s no way out really.

because you’ll always compare your life to what happened in that episode of that show. because you’ll always wish you had a man like that character from that book. and you’ll always feel that void, that hole in you but nothing will ever be able to fill it, because fiction has made it so wide nothing can ever fill it.

fiction makes you feel things in such a huge way, you can start wondering : will i ever feel that way in real life ? and if not, what’s the point in living the real life ?

people always say that fiction saved them. that fiction helped them go through tough things. it’s true. but i think it has two sides, as all things; fiction didn’t save me, it preserved me from the real world. it gave me everything, made me feel every possible emotion. gave me big expectations for the real world, giving me no other choice but to be disappointed by the dull reality. i’m looking for that great perhaps, because i’ve read it, watched it, felt it.

our generation is a generation of sad, depressed people.

why is that, you’re asking me ?

our generation is a generation of people who have been given unrealistic expectations. our generation is a generation of people who’s been told all their lives through tv shows and books that anything is possible. but reality shows us every day that this isn’t the truth.

that is why sadness fills us on a daily basis.

because fiction makes us feel safe, but it also makes us feel like the real world isn’t big enough for our expectations. and if you’ve been stuck in the fictional world for too long, it becomes true.

don’t do drugs, they say. well, i’m telling you this :

don’t do fiction.