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I remember, some time in the early 1990’s, a song that had the lyrics:
“Wake up. Go to work. Eat. Go to sleep.”
I spend my life trying to break that four-step cycle. It’s impossible to do. I don’t resent the cycle. We live in a world where food and shelter are necessary and are only obtained through work or effort.
Still, I try to leave the cycle when possible because I think that it is too easy to fall into a rut and forget that there is opportunity for more. We don’t need to spend our energy on just these four things.
Electronic Archeology
I bring this up because I was doing some electronic house-cleaning. I re-read old email, collecting in my inboxes since I got this computer in November of 2006. I also went back and read a bunch of my old entries on this website.
After reading this, I noticed that I keep using two words to describe my what I’m doing in my life:
- Experiment
- Exploration
The Only Experiment
Friends of mine make fun of me for not having a television. When they seriously ask me why I don’t have one, I answer by saying “why would I need one when there are so many other things to do?”
But it’s more than that. It’s more than the fact that there are many alternative entertainment options. There are too many things to do that let me explore life, experiment with my perceptions of myself, and to try to be engaged with the world rather than an observer.
My writing here has been less frequent, recently, than at other times in the past. The timeline of entries on this site is also filled with gaps. The frequency and spacing of the gaps correlates with times when I’m running off and trying something new. I can see this from the entries, recalling why I decided to stop writing. I can read about it when I compare email I wrote about my life and exchanged with friends during the times I wrote less-often on this site.
I know that I’ll never completely abandon writing for this site. I also know that life, engaged with the people and the world around me, is the only thing really worth pursuing. Still, I can’t apologize when I don’t write here because when there are pauses here, it means something important is happening elsewhere in my life.
The experiment is running.
5 Comments
The TV thing is interesting - just what is it about TV that results in so much ire?
For me, its not the actual TELEVISION - it’s the laziness of a passive act that I try to avoid. I have a TV - I even turn it on. But I generally can’t focus on it: knitting, cooking, cleaning and otherwise doing active things have over shadowed my need to passively observe.
Think of how computers have changed the passive act of watching - they are no different than TVs, really - they bring someone else’s creative action to be passively consumed. However, you can now choose WHEN to watch a streaming show - you can pause it for 10 minutes or 10 weeks to get back to real life.
So is really television that’s bad, or is it those who allow it to consume time that could be better used elsewhere AND if it’s really the passive consumption that’s bad - isn’t trolling the internet for hours just as detrimental because you’re still not engaged in “real life.”
Just curious…
I own a television I never turn on. I find that I never watch television actively, meaning I never deliberately turn it on to watch. When I do catch glimpses of television it’s usually in a waiting situation - the tire shop, a bar & grill, stopping by someone else’s home.
Television is the ambient noise during the holding patterns in my activities.
I no longer “troll the Internet” either, I read the news - read an email or three ( I don’t get many) I do watch a video here and there…because someone linked it to me in a “chat” or an email.
I sit in front of a computer for 10 hours a day - maybe I inadvertently troll the web then. I certainly am on Matt’s site at the moment. When I get home or get off work and go to that place that has nothing to do with work but has a computer connection…I may play a video game.. Second Life or WoW, but not for very long.
What I find myself doing isn’t participating in life. Life is happening around me. Life is happening without me. Going out and doing “things” has become boring and meaningless..it’s become that passive act of watching other people doing things.
My point to the ramble is unless you have someone to share the experience with - it can be just the simple act of calling a friend and saying “Hey, I trekked 3 miles today, this is what I saw…”
Then all you are, all you are doing is passively existing.
I understand not owning a TV,but being a married man,the cost of alternate entertainment sources being high(going to movies,clubs,eating out,etc),having a TV cuts the costs down and gives us some things to do together that are inexpensive comparably to things done together outside the home. Wether it’s watching a movie on dvd,or watching some shows we both like,or having it on in the background on NGO or one of the discovery channels and thus sparking convesation about whats on is worth it,to us. It’s easier and reasonable for someone single to have no TV,but not so much for a couple also having only one computer tends to set up a dynamic where one watches shows the other one doesn’t like while that one is on the PC and vice-versa.
What’s great about your statement Walt, is that it sounds like you’ve made what could be a passive experience active - which is great. I think it’s never about the external thing, be it television, music, books - it’s about your own ability to balance your engagement and growth in the world against the somewhat lazier options - sitting silently side by side in a dark room staring at people eating bugs for money.
However, regardless of the content, if something sparks a conversation between two people, I doubt it’s really hurtful. Like anything else, engagement with the world is on a continuum. I strike up surprisingly meaningful conversations with strangers all the time, so don’t begrudge me my 30 Rock.
Tivo/dvr,makes it easier…you can pause and talk,then start the program again without losing content,or talking over a program or eachother.
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