I do not want to spend my life being entertained by TV instead of actively bring imagination to life.
I am concerned that we are being encouraged to become lazy – that more people invest too much of their happiness on external things – on being in on a cool show or hobby to make them happy because of the attention they get from others to be exact. Then, when that thing is over (the person leaves or the series is finished) they realized that they are still drowning and are scrambling at twigs to keep them afloat. We swim in an ocean where thousands of branches float around us but few are investing the patience and fortitude to fashion even a schooner.
That said there are a growing number of television series with a great writer or writing team and I am so happy because it shows that it is not just up to the actors being attractive. It is important to know how to develop a body of work, not just have a fancy idea. That is also not to say I hate watching TV (I enjoy Numb3rs, The Flash, Doctor Who, Flashpoint, Arrow, Dream High, Coffee Prince, and My Girlfriend is a Gumiho among many others) only that when I find myself starting to binge I feel the desire to be outside become stronger. I have a long list somewhere on my computer of series I still want to watch more of – but I am painstakingly pacing myself because enjoying all the TV series of the world is not my life priority.
With the amount of video content output we have now and the peer encouragement, shall we say, to watch this or that series we could literally do such a thing as spend our lives watching TV. I am extra sure of this because for a point in my life I worked for an international media market research company where I developed online brand assessment content – which broken down to the bare bones basics meant I watched a lot of TV and wrote surveys. Hold on, before you reprimand me and flourish about what a cool thing it would be to get paid to watch TV let me tell you this: I did not get a choice on what I had to watch. Some of you must know the teeth-grinding pain of having to sit through an entire show you did not like and give it your entire active attention from beginning to end. What did I have to do with all that attention? I had to pull every single shown brand in the show and break it down into a survey question incorporating content to assess viewer recall for placement of a company’s brand. Too much of that brainwashing awareness nonsense and I felt my brain starting to slosh.
It is probably because of the time holding that position that I’m acutely aware of what I allow myself to ingest visually and how much of it I’m exposed to. I spent a lot of my early childhood running around with cousins, on the swing in the backyard, or tobogganing down the park hills. Imagination became one of my favorite hobbies and fortes between all the time entertaining myself or my younger sister. I bare TV I watched was creative in nature, featuring Neil Buchanan in Art Attack. By the time I was allowed to watch TV I preferred the sizzle my brain received from reading and self-learning.
Then again with all these distractions we’ll be able to see more prominently the difference between class, money, and the people who really want something and are willing to work for it versus the ones who say and rarely do. We’ll also become more attuned to the core of what makes a well developed series.
Perhaps I also miss making the time to read. Have a lovely weekend my dears and smile. We can find way to make the time to do the things we want to.
Amaranthine Rain 