One of the great traps of our contemporary obsession with electronic media is the delusion that life can be lived at second hand. In video games, in movies and television series, and virtual reality constructions, players and viewers alike engage vicariously in experiences that simulate real life.

Many of these are “better than life”. Participants can behave bravely without risk, speak boldly without consequence, and experiment with ways of life that are simultaneously exciting and self-destructive; all from the safety of their proverbial living room chair.

One can argue that this is precisely what a reader experiences when reading a well-written book. I have been there when Gollum saved the world from Frodo’s ultimate failure because of his obsession with Sauron’s One Ring. I have witnessed Paul Atreides strive to escape the trap of his own prescience. I have been intimately close to Captain Ahab as he strove with the White Whale, and with van Helsing as he contended with Count Dracula.

Also through books, I have witnessed Jesus calming troubled waters, giving lepers His healing touch, teaching His Sermon on the Mount, accusing the money changers, and suffering crucifixion on behalf of a sinful humanity. I have seen His empty tomb with the women on the first Easter.

I have run with Phidippides to prevent Athens from surrendering after the victorious Battle of Marathon. I have seen the notion of freedom spark among the Hebrews and in Ancient Greece and Rome and grow bright across the West, especially in England. I was there as our Founding Fathers wrought the world’s oldest functioning Constitution.

It is not just books. Through film, I have ridden camel-back with Lawrence of Arabia and was there when US dive bombers (against all odds) surprised and destroyed three aircraft carriers of Imperial Japan’s Kido Butai at the critical five-minute fulcrum of the Battle of Midway. In productions as diverse as Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah” and Dan Curtis’ “War and Remembrance”, I have entered the railhead at Auschwitz to travel to the showers and never emerge again.

I have flown with Luke Skywalker as he used the Force to guide a proton torpedo to destroy the Death Star, and have bestrode the bridge of the starship Enterprise as Captain Kirk tried to out-think the Romulan Commander.

In video games, I learned resilience by being with Commander Shepard as he fought the Reapers. Playing as Witcher Geralt of Rivia revealed that the worst depravities do not arise from the many monstrous Drowners, or Leshen, or Huntsmen of the Wild Hunt. The darkest evils arise from the twisted hearts of men.

For all of these second-hand experiences and countless more, I am the better! I have wisdom that my own body’s suffering never earned. I have witnessed miracles of heroism and damnable crimes against our shared humanity.

However, and this is key, all of them were of help in my own real life when I faced genuine adversity. They gave me courage when I had to sacrifice in order to serve principle. They helped me to step out of obscurity to face down danger to myself and others. They counteracted my all-too-human thirst for sensation with the sure and certain understanding that my soul’s health was more important than my mind’s lusts and my body’s appetites.

My lived experiences have been leavened with manifold vicariously lived factual and fictional lives. They have stiffened my spine, and have helped me to be a man despite my timorous rodent survival instinct’s demands that I bury myself in the deepest hole I can find in order to evade the moment of trial.

I am lucky. I was born early enough so that my character was formed from authentic reality, long before virtual reality developed. I had a heroic Mom who exemplified sacrificial living to save the lives and souls of her kids. My Nana’s deep Roman Catholic faith inspired my own poor Christian convictions.

My Poppy lived as a man whose dignity-in-work defined him as a husband, father, protector, and guide. Sister Catherine Marie O’Donnell, SSND, demonstrated discipline and generosity. Jean Waugh Badner and Jean Cote invited me into their wonderful families when my own family was fraught.

Herbert Antonio Muller (pseudonyms Percival and Perrico) mentored me at an extraordinarily vulnerable moment in my life, while he was living in exile from his native Chile. Dick Farnsworth, Sylvia Pease, and Dan Nicklay each saw something worth cultivating in me, and gave me the professional scope to pursue excellence without compromise.

My friend Todd Haines helped me to rediscover God after my life’s worst crisis of faith. His ongoing friendship fills me with joy. Most of all, my wife Tina entrusted me with her everything! Her trust made me a man. Her love is the light of my life.

So many people today, especially impressionable young people, substitute virtual simulation for lived experience. This is an abuse, an imagination-trap that steals life from the addict. As “Star Trek: The Cage” most eloquently depicted, “… they found it’s a trap, like a narcotic. Because when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating.”

That is where so many of us are. In a trap of our own imaginations, or more likely the imaginations of others. Life must be lived, warts and all, with the wind on our face. We must risk, feel pain, face despair, and suffer defeat. That is precisely how we grow from being cowards to become men and women of courage. Living authentically is the secret to arise from slavery to become free.