Of all useless things, the most so is reality.

Worse, you ask, than those constantly advertised electronic muscle stimulators that are touted as a miracle cure for flabbiness, but actually seem to be a sort of self-administered electroshock therapy?

I’m afraid so.

What I mean by reality is anything that can be seen, touched, substantiated, relied on. The tangible, the logical, the mundane. If you can be sure of waking up and finding it, and particularly if you’re not too excited about the prospect, that’s reality. Like sandwiches and time clocks, loneliness and war. Like the aurora borealis having more to do with magnetic fields than with fairies.

It’s not that reality is so horrible — at least, not from my catbird seat as a healthy WASP college student. Rather, it’s depressing and unsatisfying.

Think of it this way: When you wake up and go to work or class or whatever, who are you? Do you slay dragons and seduce celebrities, or do you attempt the crossword (but give up) and/or continually pull at your tie as you squint at a monitor? Are you successful, fulfilled and interesting to hear about, or are you like the rest of us?

That’s what I thought. You get up, you eat your Cheerios or leftover pizza or wheat germ or whatever, you go wherever you have to go and kill time until they let you go home, you go to bed. Repeat until death.

Don’t think about that too hard, though, unless you want to spend the next several days crying into your bedroom carpet and listening to “The Bell Jar” on tape as read by James Earl Jones.

This is the uselessness of reality. It drags you down. It’s, in general, one of those things to be endured but not focused on, like an unpleasant odor or PMS.

The best strategy, I’ve found, is to let it all, the time clocks and the stomach-clenching news stories, just slip past. Ignore it. Put your body on autopilot and let your brain go where it will. Be an ostrich. (I freely admit it: this strategy is why my columns tend to be the journalistic equivalent of Peeps.) The real world can get along without you. And it will. With or without your participation, entropy will continue.

But once you’ve withdrawn your mind from participation in the mundane, everything opens up. I’m a time-traveling supermodel. I’m made of light. I control atomic motion and juggle muons. You can too.

I know this all sounds delusional and irresponsible. But it works. It’s so much more satisfying to go through the day with a series of tautly scripted adventures playing in your head than to think, “OK, now I’m in class. OK, now I’m walking to my next class. Look at all those people. OK, now I’m making small talk and saying things that are dumb.” It oils the wheels, you know?

Of course it’s necessary to touch down occasionally, make contact. Some activities require full concentration. And some things about reality are simply too good to miss out on. Fresh brownies, for instance, or making someone laugh uncontrollably or the clean, empty feeling after a hard workout, or spending so much time with someone that you start to smell like them, or the works of Robin McKinley. These things — your list is different, I’m sure — can almost make reality worthwhile. But the key word is almost.

I guess what I’m saying is profound and highly original: Reality is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Maybe it’s better to focus on the good parts of reality and use them to get you through the dreck. Or maybe it’s better to actually try to improve your life. Certainly those are more mature and productive options than simply flying away.

But they’re also, let’s face it, pretty uncertain. Not that we should only focus on the sure things, because here is a complete list of those things: death. But some things are surer than others, and one of the surest, at least from where I’m standing, is that the best and most fulfilling life is the one you make up yourself.

Think of it — you can be anyone. You can be worthwhile and attractive and happy and interesting and successful, all at the same time. Believe it or not.

Jackie May ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.