There's Always Time for a Little TV

Someone has actually read this blog, as evidenced by the 1 comment I received today on my first post. It's funny -- a few months before I started this blog, I was searching through websites looking for anti-television stuff, or just stories of people like me, who were addicted to television, and were trying to do something about it. I hardly found any regular websites about quitting tv, but I found quite a few blogs on the subject.

However, I noticed a pattern with most of these blogs ... the author would make the initial post, with a lot of grand language about why they were fed up with tv, and how they hated themselves for watching it, and they would declare a moratorium on tv, and invite all of us readers along with them on their journey, as they quit tv forever.

Then, they wouldn't make any more posts ... or just a few more, and then stop forever.

This would make me mad. Had they started watching tv again, and were just too ashamed to admit it in their blog? Or, had they become so liberated from quitting tv, that they had leapt off into their new, enriching and exciting lives, forgetting all about us readers?

And now, it would appear, I am one of the former. Well, except that I never declared that I would quit tv. Not yet. But I have been slow to make a second post. I've been busy. (I've been watching tv, but I've also been busy.)

Which brings me to a good point. Why do we make time for tv? Of all the things that we have to do and, more importantly, WANT to do in our lives, why do we feel that we have all this time to watch tv?

Or rather, why do we convince ourselves that we're too tired to do anything else but watch tv? We are smart people -- we have interests, no matter how few, that should trump tv any day. Why do we come home from work or school (or from nowhere at all, if we're unemployed), and plop down in front of the tv, exhausted, and just sit in front of it for hours???

Are we REALLY that tired, SO tired, that we can't possibly do anything else besides sit, motionless, occasionally giggling or making a comment, and stare?

Maybe we, all of us tv addicts, should try this: Next time we find ourselves sitting and staring at the tv (or, even better, BEFORE we have turned on the tv), we should just sit motionless, and stare at nothing. Stare at the wall, stare at the bookshelf, stare at a picture on the wall, stare out the window. Whatever. Just sit and stare and be motionless. See how that feels. That's considered meditating by many people.

But you can consider it sitting and staring, for these purposes. When you get bored with sitting and staring, get up and do something else. Because obviously you are not too tired to do anything but sit and stare.

I will try it too. Let's all try it. We have lives beyond our tvs. Let's start living them.