hrmmmm

[garote]

Yeah, so the Japanese have singing toilets. Why do so many Gaijin not get this? A toilet that makes noise will obscure the impolite sounds of excretion. I used to date a girl who played the radio really loud in the bathroom for this same purpose.

So my housemates were loafing on the couch the other day in front of the television. While I was in my room organizing my notes, I heard them making snide comments at a show that was all about the "white trash" sport of lawnmower racing. "That is so stupid," one exclaimed, fascinated. "What complete dorks," the other agreed. This abuse continued as they watched the program right to the end.

At first I was irritated beyond all reasonable proportions. These two people were camped in front of the television, as they are for hours every single day, casting aspersions at a show about lawnmower racing? Who are the "dorks" in this arrangement? The dorks on the lawnmowers, or the dorks passively mocking the dorks on the lawnmowers?

But quickly I realized that now, I was behaving in an even stupider fashion. Now, I had become a dork, complaining about the dorks, who were complaining about the dorks riding lawnmowers on the television. This was bad.

So I shifted gears and decided that the true focus of my hate should be the television. Then I realized that all this moral tap-dancing was distracting me from my notes. And then, I realized the greater dilemma.

I have, essentially, three options.

1. I can follow my first impulse, and call my housemates dorks for watching dorks on TV, when they could be out playing street hockey or something. They'd be angry, I'd be angry, and our living situation would become tense and combative.
2. I can follow my second impulse, and seethe about what a lurid pathetic device I think the television is, which would only be half true in my heart -- but I would keep my mouth shut about it, and seethe internally, in order to maintain the harmony of the household.
3. I could forget about it, and the habits of my housemates, entirely, and just get back to my notes. Perhaps I could request they change the channel, or turn on some music of my own.

Option three is the most adequate solution, but it's a trick of discipline. I can't allow myself the pleasure of feeling superior to my housemates. Nor would it be a good use of my time to embark on some quest to convince them to watch less damned television; it's not my business, and it's a quest that is almost certainly doomed because they're just too old to change their habits now.

Perhaps if they were teenagers, or younger, I would make some offhand comment about how television is reaming out their minds like lemons being twisted on the nipple of an old-fashioned juicer, how they're spending what are potentially the most active eras of their single lives sitting down, saying nothing. ... But really, what's the point of all that? They're comfortable in their habits, and I have no use for them.

And yet, my own behavior is far from perfect. I've spent a lot of time sifting through media myself, especially recently. And now, in my own journal, I've wasted my time adding to the shouting match of "dorks", pointing my finger like everyone else. In this regard, I have failed.

Comments

[pennygirl.livejournal.com]

[thegoodreverend.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't television...that medium was the default method of information exchange (though mostly 1 way) for 60 years. Sure, there's a lot of crap, but there's a lot of crap in magazines, radio, and (gasp!) the internet. There are definatly people who overuse and get woefully sucked in to all of those media, however.

I often spend too much time being a dork, commenting on things like Christianity in chat rooms and church-state seperation and George Bush. As long as it's not ALL you do, you're fine =)

[reignspike.livejournal.com]

Aahhh, but you're questioning. You're seeking. You're trying to understand your own impulses and those of others. You're learning. And you're therefore growing, even if all you're doing is wondering about whether or not you're a dork for getting upset at dorks watching dorks.

TV is a tool, like any other. Unfortunately, in our culture, this particular tool has been warped into something which sucks the life and soul from people. I myself have not watched TV for a few years, now, and my life has been vastly improved. I actually DO things with my time that are likely to move my life forward, instead of idling it away, killing time by watching some sitcom. And I know that if TV were available to me, I would watch it. For the "good shows", I'd tell myself, right up until the point that I drowned in my own vegetative drool. No, no TV for me, thank you. Better if it's not available.

I'm not exactly saying that TV is evil, or that people who watch it are stupid; I just believe that people should stand up for themselves more, instead of sitting down to watch TV. Watching TV allows them to escape their lives instead of trying to improve them.

It's >stagnation< that is truly the killer. When you no longer care to improve yourself or the lives of those around you, you are dead.

[garote]

Yeah, I guess I know that, but I'm ever the perfectionist, ... and there are always a million things to pay attention to. For some reason I was really cheesed off at television just then. :)

[garote]

Yeah ... I agree 100 percent with this assessment. You know what I think? The problem isn't television itself, it's generally the programming on it -- exactly the sort of thing that will pull your eyeballs in, capture your brain for a half hour, and then release it ... and have no other effect. Poof, there goes half an hour. It's gone, and you have nothing to show for it.

yeeeeeeeech! I mean, hey, even MASTURBATION is EXERCISE.