Hmm. I'm not going to say you're overgeneralizing, because you probably do have observational data behind your summation above. But even if it applies to the majority of "escapists" -- there's a significant percentage out there who not only do have plan; they make up for a good chunk of the truly brilliant and creative people who do anything truly interesting, at all.
The closest I can get to these people's underlying thought mechanics is that they just don't want to subordinate any time at all to anyone else. They want complete 100% control over all of their time. Which would be really nice, but c'mon now.
OK, now we're getting somewhere. But is it really that outlandish? There's this category of people known as "small business owners", you know - who basically fit that description. In fact, if you look around, there's quite a lot of them out there. In addition to, you know, genuinely creative people -- successful film makers, musicians and the like.
Are you saying they all should've just thrown in the towel, gotten a teaching job or something because... there's just no "there" in these pursuits they were almost blindingly attracted to?
C'mon now.