I was raised among scientists whose attitude was that reality was so interesting, delving into fantasy was a poor substitute. To be honest, I still rather feel

I was raised among scientists whose attitude was that reality was so interesting, delving into fantasy was a poor substitute. To be honest, I still rather feel this way, but I see that for so many people, the demands of knowledge, effort, and time required for positive outcomes in their corner of reality are too great for most people to experience much of significance. So I've become less critical of fantasy as an absorbing interest. Furthermore, in a world where the bulk of published research is non-replicable, I've become bothered by doubts about how much of my mental models of scientific reality are actually fantasy.