This week’s subject is one in which my advice is particularly useless: TV consumption. When I was kid, we did technically have a television set, but only because at a certain point my grandparents thrust their old one upon my very reluctant parents. It was decades old and very heavy and it kept falling off its flimsy stand and wounding its pixels: the left corner was permanently green, the middle red, the right side blue. Also, we only got three channels. Also, we kept it in the unfinished basement, which was completely covered in active spiderwebs. Also, my father installed a lock system, such that when he turned the key, the wires inside the television disconnected and the set would not turn on. It was always locked.
And IN SPITE OF SUCH OBSTACLES, I went so far as to SPEND HOURS PICKING THE LOCK so that I could turn on the television and victoriously watch Supermarket Sweep in the scary basement alone. And then I became a film major, and now sometimes TV is my job, even. Screw you, Dad!
. . . Just kidding about that last part. I love my father, and I would never call him Dad! When he did find out about the lock picking, he was pretty impressed, if baffled. Someday I’ll tell you about all the fun things we did instead of watching TV together, like building telegraphs and zip lines. But not today! Today I will give you unqualified advice about having a healthy relationship with television.
Dear Sofia,
I can't stop watching Gilmore girls even though I know it's bad for me. Should I stop or lean into it?
Sincerely,
-Gil-snore Girls or Gil-MORE Girls
What about you? How much TV do you watch, and how do you watch it, and how does it make you feel, and all that jazz? I’m very curious.
Thanks for reading!
-S
I seem to be surrounded by TV lovers while I'm mostly ambivalent to it. Put something on and I'll watch it with you, but sitting down and choosing something to watch? Too much pressure. I'll pick up one of the half dozen books I'm in the middle of instead.
Too much screentime gives me a headache, too.
How cynical! Let's just throw in the towel and say trivial examination is OK because it is more fulfilling than anything else we have. If anything life in a pandemic should PROVOKE deeper thought into who we are, what we mean to each other, and where we are headed as a society.
Sure, have all the fun you want in any era but don;' indulge too much in those things that distract us from our real work...which is not co consumer or be comfortable, but to produce with effort that which makes other people more productive. All play and no think time makes us stupid, unobservant, vulnerable, and stupid.