bhaskar saikia

What’s the purpose of life? To chase dreams or to seek bliss?

Maybe both. Maybe they’re the same. As Mark Zuckerberg once said, when asked about his work hours—“Define work. I just play.” When you follow your dream with sincerity, life can indeed feel like play. But does that mean life is without tragedy?

Not at all.

Wars rage on. Genocides still happen. Hunger stalks corners of the world where food is ironically in surplus. Even with technological progress at its peak and human civilization at its most connected, we’ve failed—again and again—to prevent suffering. Why?

Because we don’t want to look at suffering.

We scroll past images of starving children. We change the channel when war victims speak. We silence the uncomfortable. We are wired to avoid pain—not just physically, but mentally. That is our nature. We are all escapists.

Escapism: The Soft Blanket Over a Burning World

The world feels heavy. So we create distractions. We indulge in entertainment, consume content, chase trends, or bury ourselves in to-do lists. Escapism is our balm—but it also blunts our awareness. We escape not to heal, but to ignore.

Take money, for instance. It controls everything—education, health, safety, power. Yet most of us don’t understand how it truly works. We treat economics as if it’s someone else’s business. Too complex, too boring, not my job.

This very indifference allows the game to be rigged.

The powerful bend monetary systems to their benefit while the rest remain ignorant, vulnerable. The growing divide between the rich and the poor isn’t just an accident of capitalism—it’s a symptom of collective avoidance. Apathy is the real virus.

Understanding Money: A Wake-Up Call

Today’s money isn’t backed by gold or any tangible resource. It’s just a promise—a government’s guarantee. This promise is manipulated by mechanisms like fractional reserve banking, which most of us have never even heard of.

Don’t know what that is? That’s the point.

Those who understand money shape its flow. Those who don’t—well, they get swept by it. If we avoid understanding money because it’s “too technical,” we voluntarily place ourselves at the mercy of a system we’ve never questioned.

As I wrote in the article: If you try to avoid understanding the most vital thing in the world – about money – then the risk is that you might end up at the bottom of the power axis which money commands.

We Can’t Escape the Unavoidable

Yes, I’m an escapist too. I avoid sad films, grim books, and headlines soaked in despair. They upset me. I seek lightness. But I also realize that there are some things we simply cannot afford to ignore—money is one of them.

Avoiding the unavoidable doesn’t lead to peace. It leads to decay. It may feel easier now, but it makes life harder later.

From Escapism to Engagement

So what can we do?

Start small. Read about how money works. Ask questions about your savings, investments, the value of your currency. Talk about inequality. Speak to someone who lives differently than you do. Confront the difficult.

Because ignoring suffering doesn’t make it go away. And denying our ignorance doesn’t turn it into knowledge.

Maybe we’ll always need our moments of escape. But let’s not lose ourselves there.