Why Serious Stuff is ultimately more satisfying: because no matter how absorbing a fantasy world is, it's ultimately a made up system with no or very little connection to anything else. Whereas if I spend some time learning about how drugs affect people's brains, or something like that, I can connect it to other stuff I know about the real world and be able to apply it to real world situations. Fictional worlds created by a really good author are convincing illusions but unlike real life it's possible to know everything there is about a fictional world, and once you reach that point there's literally nowhere else to go.* The real world has unlimited depth - no matter how much you study a single field there's always more.
*I don't think fanfics count, because that's just making stuff up rather than finding stuff that was already there. Writing your own world is another matter entirely, and could well be as satisfying as the real world, but I doubt I'll ever find out personally.
Finally, a lot of the real world is downright cooler or weirder than anything an author could make up, to the point where if an author included it in a story most readers would mock them for being unrealistic. I'd mention a couple of cool things from linguistics but I suspect they're only really cool to a linguistics nerd like me :)
I won't deny that there's a prestige / conformity aspect to it, but I don't think it's the main reason. I also won't deny that I'm an aspiring academic :)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 05:44 am (UTC)Fictional worlds created by a really good author are convincing illusions but unlike real life it's possible to know everything there is about a fictional world, and once you reach that point there's literally nowhere else to go.* The real world has unlimited depth - no matter how much you study a single field there's always more.
*I don't think fanfics count, because that's just making stuff up rather than finding stuff that was already there. Writing your own world is another matter entirely, and could well be as satisfying as the real world, but I doubt I'll ever find out personally.
Finally, a lot of the real world is downright cooler or weirder than anything an author could make up, to the point where if an author included it in a story most readers would mock them for being unrealistic. I'd mention a couple of cool things from linguistics but I suspect they're only really cool to a linguistics nerd like me :)
I won't deny that there's a prestige / conformity aspect to it, but I don't think it's the main reason. I also won't deny that I'm an aspiring academic :)