Painful attachments to fiction [Question]

When we get attached, we're always getting attached to the idea of a person--even when we think we're getting attached to a real person. It's not the person in themselves, who they "really" are, with all their random fluctuations and general messiness, that we find ourselves thinking about, longing for, crying over, etc. It's who we imagine them to be.

In some ways, getting attached to a fictional person/world is all the more enticing, and all the more difficult to break free from, because there is no reality there to contradict our illusion. There is no one there whose words and actions prove to us that, hey, who I think they are and who they actually are are two different things. Because, by definition, who I think they are is all there is. Except all there is is nothing. Because they are not real. They have no substance--not even the substance to contradict us and frustrate us and counter our illusions about them.

I've gone down that rabbit hole myself. And while it can be all-consuming in the moment, over the long term I don't think anything so insubstantial can last. I still find myself getting very involved in certain stories that I read or watch or tell myself, and I can feel very intense emotions--as "real" as any emotions I would feel interacting with a real person--but I know they're just passing responses to whatever I'm engaging with at the moment. One week it may be a character in a book/movie, another week it might be a public figure on the news. I know I'll experience emotional reactions to a lot of things/events/people (and don't expect I'll ever stop reacting emotionally altogether). But I also know they'll pass. I can feel happiness and grief, but I can also get on with my life. It takes practice, but I'm sure you'll manage to gain some perspective and learn to manage your emotions--after all, you're always undergoing random fluctuations too, and you are much more "real" to yourself than the fictions you get attached to.

/r/Buddhism Thread