We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.
Iris Murdoch
Illusions and desire might be termed as two sides of a coin. You know why? As through our desires we can weave illusions around ourselves which often transport us to those situations and places where we want to be! Sounds confusing? It is frankly! After all any illusion is built on strong logics and needs an intelligent and scientific brain to decode it. But when desires become overambitious, the illusionary world becomes dangerous, as we might go to any length and breadth to achieve our fantasies.
Illusions can be found in many forms around us – in textures, in mirages, in scientific experiments, human perceptions and also in people’s personalities.
Wanda Maximoff or Scarlet Witch (as we know her from the Marvel series), is a character who portrays these two elements through her role in ‘Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness’ released in 2022. Her personal losses led her to shut herself and build a strong web of illusions around, to stay in that bubble, where she was happy and content. In that idyllic world of her own, she fictitiously created her family with husband – Recreated Vision and two twin sons – Billy and Tommy Maximoff. The desire to meet the twins strengthened the illusion when she got corrupted by the Darkhold. This corruption and chaos in her mind manifested from the loss of a precious something/someone which she called her own, and her longingness to secure her private relationship.
Often, we fall into these self-made traps where we become reclusive, as the bubble is what makes us happy. We are okay to shun ourselves and stay inwards, as anything from the outer world could breakthrough or try to rummage through our strongly-packed private emotions which we do not want to share with anyone. This feeling can be often intimidating and could lead us to either damage ourselves from within or damage the outer world. Now, the first situation is definitely not desirable, but what happens when we start striking the outer world in an emotion of vengeance. We let the outer (negative forces in this case) overpower and overtake our emotions, whereafter they morph us into an alternative version of ourselves who is driven by the outer forces and not by our own wit.
Wanda was taken over and corrupted by the Darkhold (an external force) when her strong motherly instinct triggered the hope of meeting her twins which was only possible in another Universe. Thus, started the process of destruction when she transformed from motherly to wicked, destructing everything around her to reach to her destination. The illusion was the Darkhold, which transformed her emotions, actions and thoughts in a blinding way and projected her negative side. Although by the end, she was able to shut down the effect of Darkhold and release herself from the external forces.
The POV here is that though we all have dark and tough times in our lives, it is wise to not let any force vanquish our inner selves and instead stay patient and optimistic, or else we could be our very own destroyers.
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
Anne Lamott
AN URBAN LENS 