Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in?
If you could live in any fictional world, most people immediately say Harry Potter. And I get it. The moving staircases. The secret shops. The butterbeer. The fact that an owl can apparently handle the postal system better than the USPS.
But the older I get, the more I realize I don’t actually want to live in Hogwarts.
For one thing, the healthcare system seems questionable. The government is dysfunctional. There are approximately 47 opportunities for a child to be murdered every semester. And I have some concerns about a school where the adults routinely respond to danger with, “Well, let’s see what happens.”
So I started thinking about where would I actually belong?
And I think I want to live somewhere that feels slightly more magical than real life but still has coffee, bookstores, eccentric people, good conversations, complicated women, and a town where everyone knows everyone else’s business.
Basically, I want Stars Hollow.
I want to walk into a diner and have someone know my order. I want absurd town meetings. I want quirky neighbors with strong opinions about everything. I want people to gather for festivals that nobody really needs but everyone attends anyway. I want a bookstore, a ridiculous amount of coffee, and a community that is simultaneously supportive and deeply annoying.
I don’t necessarily want dragons.
I want lore.
I want a place with history, characters, inside jokes, rituals, ghosts of old relationships, and at least one person everyone knows is completely insane but somehow remains on the planning committee.
Maybe that’s what I’m really looking for in a fictional world. Not escape from reality, but a more interesting version of it.
A world where ordinary life has a little more plot.
And preferably better coffee.
Categories: Culture, identity, mental health, Pop Culture, Psychology, society, TV
psychologistmimi 
I want to live in Bladerunner world. Don’t worry, i’m still in therapy.
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I love bladerunner. A bit dark but interesting world
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Dear Mimi and the one who “want[s] to live in Bladerunner world … [and is] still in therapy,
Thank you, for revealing to us what you are “really looking for in a fictional world.” In return, here is what I want:
To pursue the matter further, we humans have such short lifespans. Many sci-fi films have pushed the frontiers and envelops of existential forms, issues and possibilities. In this regard, artificial intelligence (AI), the domain of nonorganic sentient beings and intelligent machines with advanced autonomy and consciousness has many implications for the future generations, who will increasingly mesh their lives with not just the computer user interface but also the human-machine interface. One can be amply taken by the futuristic scenarios in Philip K Dick’s novels containing advanced and thought-provoking ideas. The issues and implications of the others as “The Machines” are very multifaceted and complex. In a very palpable way, the movie “Blade Runner” has posted some sobering questions and possible scenarios.
In turbo-charging our vision and dream of the cybernetically enhanced existence in the near future, there are many things to ponder. For example, I would like to consider not only sensory enhancement but also the quality and longevity of lives, and not just human lives. Each year, so many trees are logged and made into Christmas trees for decoration, and so many fresh flowers are cut only to fade within days or weeks. I simply resort to decorating, once and for all and as best as I can, a small artificial tree, which I keep using year after year. For the same reason, I have a lot of life-like artificial plants, flowers and leaves indoors and they could last for decades as opposed to having real flowers lasting just a few days. Could we have perpetually living artificial plants and animals so that some of us don’t have to bid farewell to short-lived pets and plants as they age and pass away?
Similarly, I, SoundEagle🦅, really wish that I could have some “artificial” but sentient humans or robots too, something like Commander Data, the Bicentennial Man, Rachel in Blade Runner, or other advanced automata as seen in Sci-Fi movies, as long as they are free of the usual human frailties, follies, foibles, deceptions and irrationality, if not immortality. Alternatively, some benign, benevolent and understanding extra-terrestrials could be even more desirable, and could present the chance and means for intergalactic or even interuniverse travel, thus ending, transforming and transcending my meagre earth-bound, dust-to-dust ephemeral existence.
Whether or not there have been conspiracies about UFO cover-ups, I do welcome the possibilities of meeting aliens on good terms.
Let us think about another Roy, namely, Roy Neary as opposed to Roy Batty. Have you ever thought about leaving Earth, to which your whole life and being have been attached? Let me further clarify why someone as rational, educated and clear-minded as SoundEagle🦅 could even entertain asking the question of whether one would choose to stay on Earth or go with the aliens as Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) did in the movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. The choice for me would be the latter for two major reasons. The first reason is that the human species is so flawed that there are no long-lasting peace and redemption. Given the escalating social problems and ongoing environmental crises on Earth, it would be easy for some of us to imagine that we could be citizens in the kind of morally and technologically advanced societies portrayed in Star Trek. Unfortunately, we were born several centuries too early. Sometimes one might indeed feel that it would be very nice to join Roy Neary and to leave the Earth in that giant mothership for good so as to achieve or awaken interstellar or (inter)galactic Spiritual Revolutionaries!
The reason is also enhanced by my appreciation of the movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” for the following compelling grounds on various levels and kinds of consideration, including those pertaining to the music in the movie, as well as what the musical collaboration entailed for a period of seven years, quite unheard of then and even now for any movies, whether they are sci-fi or not. Therefore, unlike other composers, John Williams had a great deal of time to create the “masterpiece”, including the use of extended techniques usually reserved for avant-garde serious music such as that of Iannis Xenakis. Of course, in the music for “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”, there is the famous five-note motif, plus the clever inclusion of “When You Wish Upon a Star” by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for the 1940 Disney animated film “Pinocchio” to convey the monumentality of inter(galactic)species communication. Yet, there is also the two-note tritone motif. On the whole, the orchestral rendition of the music is (much) more sophisticated and extended than those of other film music composed by Williams, never mind that I am also a composer who graduated from a Conservatorium of Music at a university, though I also possess other degrees gained in totally different disciplines.
The second reason is that we spent years accumulating knowledge and wisdom only to see our corporeal form disintegrating in mere decades. This sentiment or lament plus the longing for true transcendence are acutely expressed in two long rhyming poems in the said post.
Therefore, both the film and music resonate with me in multiple, synergistic ways. Off we go in a UFO 🛸. . . . . You are very welcome to take an intergalactic trip with me boldly Flying Away One Day as a Stranger from Milky Way in an animation-intensive multimedia post entitled “🌌🚀 One Day We’ll Fly Away ✈️💫✨”, available at
Indeed, I would love to fly away, even leaving the Milky Way behind…..
I would like to inform you that this musical, animated and mixed media post must be viewed in situ on my website (not via the WordPress Reader) on a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen, given that it contains intricate graphical designs, advanced styling and multimedia components plus dynamic animations all the way from the top to the bottom of the entire post. Please enjoy flying away with me!
Happy September to both of you!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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