When I was young and sheltered. watching superhero cartoons and their commercials on TV, I believed there was a magical place where everything was ideal and I was a hero. The characters with charm and charisma that saved the city they lived in convinced me that adventure, oppurtunity to make a difference, and excitement dwelt in such perfection. I aspired to such a life and started searching for some kind of chemical to turn into The Flash, shoes that would make me run fast like Sonic, or a radioactive spider that would make me stronger than Peter Parker.

Then when I turned 17, I ditched the search for that "thing" that would make me a hero and became a hip-hop artist who would try to "wake people up." I kept on searching and searching for record labels that would hear my tunes, poorly connected with people who would potentially become fans. And finally, in June 2020, at 37 years-old, I finally learned that reality seldom mirrors the images, memes, cartoons, and inspirational messages I grew up with all these years: messages that I could be a hero, that I could be anything, and that if I worked hard enough I could make a difference along with a lot of money.

We tend to think we can live as close as we can to the perfect life we want based on advertisments or symbolic representations of what we value. A custom mix-and-match waredrobe can symbolize rebellion or make someone feel attractive, a car can represent vitality or status, and sending money to a favourite politician may equate to revolution. This belief that the right accessories eventually leads to utopia is deeply ingrained.

The significance of images that shape our values and ideologies today is partly due to how the system markets them to us. Advertising and marketing sell us on the idea that products possess almost mystical properties: Old Spice promises popularity or power, Monster energy drinks embodies youthful energy, and clothing from Spensers oozes sex appeal (and their 18+ products in the back of the store literally take that appeal to an extreme). We constantly exchange our time and creativity at work, or selling things on Facebook marketplace, Kijiji, or Karrot, for extra money to buy these symbols, which perpetuate a cycle of wanting more. The illusion is that these products satisfy our desires, but they only create additional needs, ensnaring us to subconciously ask in a cycle of consumption: When is enough enough?

Chasing imaginary images and unreachable dreams is so much easier than confronting reality, and when one is religious, the need to hang onto those images becomes so strong that if the image fades, the religious person would rather go to hell. It's less risky to manifest or pray what is desired but not necessary into existence than to put in work to at least do the best you can to ensure what's needed is important and achieved. However, a life of authentic adventure, being healthy and creative, connecting with other people, and romancing does not require a picturesque cabin, a nice house, the right software to create music or edit images, or matching accessories. Identifying with a commonly used template or pre-made image is simpler than determining and working towards genuine aspirations and values.

Our fascination with marketted things, things we need that appeal to us, leads us to seek life in that has impossible expectations based on visual representations of experiences. These expectations fed to us through the system, from television to celebrity gossip to politics, keep us engaged in a fantasy world without involving us. They isolate us, making us feel connected to events and characters that do not truly affect us, while distancing us from our real lives, tasks that we actually NEED to do, and communities that we have a chance to change.

We've become so accustomed to being the platform hero in a video game that we often feel more capable of jumping around to save a princess rather than to do something small like take out the garbage without a camera following us around. This is reflected in our language. We tend to speak of societal changes as if they are out of our control, yet we are the ones actively shaping our world.

To genuinely pursue happiness, we must seek meaningful experiences rather than trying to emulate what we see on TV, what self-help gurus tell us to do or to chase or to be, and have realistic goals to do on our bucket lists. Our value in life should come from actions and emotions that we can realistically do and feel, not from what we possess, how we look, how many friends or likes we get on social media, or if we do something cool on-stage that goes viral on YouTube. Only by actively AND REALISTICALLY participating in the shaping of our world as best as we can, do we head towards a place where we can claim true agency in our lives.

Our obsession with attention, leaving a legacy, being part of a cult that knows the "truth," or doing something significant suggests a deeper insecurity about our existence. We capture moments with smartphone cameras, reducing life to two-dimensional images that offer a false sense of control. But this detached way of living, experiencing the world through a lens, scrolling a social media feed, is no substitute for authentic living.

To live a life of purpose, we must shift our values from observing to actually participating outside our homes and apartments. We need to stop consuming and constantly be creating. Only then, can we move beyond the illusion of an unrealistic pursuit of what isn't real into an actual reality where we are the authors of our own destinies.