The Experience Fantasy

Here's something that plagues me on and off: the vague desire to "go out and experience the city." It's the notion that there's a huge metropolis sprawling out before me--or whatever - it could be a mountain range or forest for all I care--that offers as much or more than any other city in the world, and I should grab that bull by its horns to Experience it.

Say you've been sitting at home for an entire day, and just as the sun starts to go down you feel a desire welling up inside you. You want to Experience Something. This is not stir craziness, but perhaps a related phenomenon I will label the Experience Fantasy. I don't mean going out for a few drinks. That's fun, but not what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about an On the Road-esque, intense, moving experience. An Adventure. An underground anarchist meeting. A party with a bunch of artists or writers. A great show that isn't your typical shit-ass indie band repeating cliches. Meeting a stranger and having a discussion about psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, or photography. Being moved by a piece of art at a museum. Participating in my generation's version of what makes New York City such an incredible place. Maybe leaving a mark? I don't think that's part of the Experience Fantasy. It's just a potential outcome.

Where do these desires come from? Really. Are they ingrained in us by the constant barrage of idealized images to which we're exposed? Is it an effect of anxiety - the ideas and images to which an anxious mind clings are those most readily available? We're certainly programmed to a large degree by our surroundings; there is no doubt in my mind. Surrounding people, images, sounds, smells. But these aren't necessarily mainstream experiences (or desires for experience) - the Experience Fantasy is focused more on fabled underground esoteric experiences. The epic intellectual battles between philosophers; the raucous, brilliant music; the avant-garde plays; the Woody Allen romances.

But try to hold on to an Experience Fantasy; try to grasp it, and to understand what that desire actually is. Are there core kernels of desire which you can understand? That you can act on? Or do attempts to grok a desire result in more vague desires, or vague ideas of what to do? Often mine are the latter, and when I act on the Experience Fantasy, I'm disappointed because I didn't quench that vague desire. It wasn't quenched because I didn't have a firm understanding of what it was in the first place. What must be done first is to have an understanding of the Experience Fantasy in question, and to act or not act only then.

Are these things others experience as well? I can't imagine I'm alone in the Experience Fantasy, but I would like to know the prevalence. I see a lot of deluded doofuses running around all over the place who must be acting on their own set of vague notions. But do they have the Experience Fantasy too?