No TV Cont.

Alyssa asks what I meant when I said "television didn't work for my family." Well the first thing was that I wanted to achieve some sort of separation from the "television ruins society" argument which I don't respect anymore than a "books ruin society" argument. People ruin society. Heh, I believe that. But the point was that I think people should not assume that what works for them, works for the world.

Anyway, in terms of why it didn't work for us, I noted my own propensity for watching things that made me want to kill myself. In terms of actual show, I'll stick to my choices, since I don't want to air Kenyatta out. I came to this conclusion during the last election season, when I basically was addicted to cable news. The very clucking heads who I routinely denounce on this blog, were basically occupying a third of my brain. But that third wasn't filled with new information, so much as rage and self-righteousness.

That was when I started thinking about what I was consuming, and how much I was paying for it (the cable bill was over a buck fifty.) We basically had a family conversation and decided that the things we loved (excepting sports) could be gotten in other ways. We could download Mad Men via Itunes or Amazon. We could see The Office on Hulu. And if I really needed to see that segment from Hardball, I could still see it without committing myself to zoning out on the couch. I could just watch it, and then move on.

It's true that we tossed our television, but what we really tossed was a style of consuming television. It became a much proactive activity. We now only see what we really want to see, as opposed to passive consumption.