It was only 2 months ago this all started. It wasn't even October yet, it had just been over a month since I came back from Japan, USC football wasn't yet in the toilet and the NBA season had yet to start. In relation to K-Pop, I knew SNSD (Girl's Generation) had too many attractive girls of whom I could only name 2 or 3 out of the 130948309482 members... and that was about the extent of my knowledge of the world of K-Pop. It all started innocently.. I was watching more and more Korean variety shows, I started to follow Korean celebrity news a little more and more, but eventually this snowballed and 2 months later, I'm sitting at my desk caring about the most inane of things ranging from the return of an exiled Jay to 2PM to whatever new outfit/image K-Pop Girl Band A, B & C are popularizing. In short, I know that I share an obsession/habit with that of prepubescent 12-14 year old Korean girls, but I always appealed to the stock excuse that "it's all in harmless/stupid fun".
With this said, the connections to daydreaming should be becoming clearer. Recently, my older sister made a comment that, though the Korean media isn't unique in this, the whole variety/reality show phenomenon in Korea with all the celebrities that is very particular to Korea reminded her of the Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show. If you haven't seen it (I highly recommend it), the movie is about Jim Carrey's character's life being a reality show which everyone except his character is aware of. One of the points of the movie and my sister's point is that the fad/obsession with the reality/variety shows in Korea creates this nagging addiction where the general population lives vicariously through the celebrities. These reality shows aim to make the audience feel that they are close to the celebrities, or even better, they can relate and be in their shoes. Whether it be a reality show like "We Got Married" or a variety show like "Star Golden Bell" or pretty much any show you can fill in the blank with, they offer an escape from reality and entrance into a world of daydreams.
I can personally attest to all of this. Stupid as it may sound, I was hooked into the hook-ups, scandals, dating news, etc in the celebrity world, mainly because I daydreamed of that being me and because I place these celebrities on a pedestal. It was fun to not think about my drags of reality and every day life (LSAT, law school, studying, etc) and immerse and daydream of a different world. One celebrity liking another, fake scandals to the left and to the right, the drama, etc, it offered an escape but also a seemingly more enticing alternative to my "boring" life. However, a closer inspection of my obsession with this pop culture and the daydreaming that ensued revealed danger.
A friend of mine once told me that daydreaming was dangerous because he thought it was directly related to wanting to escape from reality and desiring and coveting something "better" or something "else", and that this was particularly dangerous as he saw it as a direct dissatisfaction in God. When I remembered this, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back as I slapped my forehead and wondered what the heck I was doing with my life. The more time consuming this interest became, the more my mind wandered from scripture and satisfaction in the Creator and drifted towards daydreaming and obsessing over creations. At this breaking point where this interest in K-Pop threatened to consume me, I was reminded of the dangers of daydreaming and idolatry. Daydreaming stems from boredom and dissatisfaction in life and strives to fill that void by imagining something ELSE that one covets and desires. Furthermore, this coveting and dissatisfaction leads us to seek comfort and satisfaction in the material things, in storing treasures on Earth, resulting in idolatry.
This post isn't going to be groundbreaking or even, to be blunt, original. But it is a reflective, remindful piece that I think we all need. That we need not store treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but to place and hopes and treasures in God in heaven, where the moth and rust DO NOT destroy and where thieves DO NOT break in and steal. The material fades away, but salvation and the Kingdom do not fade. This past Sabbath, Pastor Edward (our new head pastor) spoke on Genesis 3 and paradise. He mentioned that paradise is not a place, but a relationship. In reference to Genesis and creation, paradise to God wasn't the Garden of Eden, but the relationship with Adam & Eve. And just as He shed the blood of animals to cover them, Christ shed His blood to cover us. It's time to stop being dissatisfied by our shortcomings and instead, rediscover satisfaction in His covering of our shortcomings.
Yeah.
