So, it’s been 3 months that I haven’t watched TV. Mid-May, I finally let it go after talking about it for …years.   I can’t say I am a million times more productive, but I feel a lot better.  I am more productive. I have been reading more too.

I have lots of praise for TV but I can’t handle it’s ability to check me out.  I’ve been able to not watch it at various points but since the summer my father died–which is now 10 years–when I began sitting catatonic, zoning out to TV to numb it all, I have watched enormous amounts of not much at the expense of too much.

I have lots to say good about many TV shows but I do not just watch a good quality show.  No.  I am fascinated by a C movie aired at 2 am on a Wednesday. I will find something of interest even in those.

I knew that with extra interesting options from cable, it would be more overwhelming, so I never got it.  Plus it’s so expensive and despite my nasty habit, I am not home enough to justify it.  Nonetheless, we had by random chance a few key free channels-TBS, Bravo, Food Network, and now and then some other fun ones.  And I also became totally into Law and Order–all 3 versions, as well as CSI–2 of the 3 versions.

Too much.

So done.

Some shows, I will Netflix.  They are good and I look at time watching those as more quality time, like watching a movie, which I do not feel is wasting time.

I wrote this back in 2002.  It’s been a long time but I finally did it!

TV
12/29/02
by J. Diels

TV is so narcotic
Hypnotic creating
A vicious cycle habit
The more I watch
The lazier I get
The more my life is lost
But I can’t stop
so I can never get back
And must stay living in regret
Because I let it get the best of my past
It’s so easy to just park
In front of the TV
Mindless, escape, zero effort work
Then I wonder why I’m sitting here
So uninspired, so inactive, so blank
So numb I can’t even shed a tear
For all these lost years
But I don’t want to turn it off
So I should just resign myself to idiocy and obesity
Give up my dream, be like everyone else in this country
Lost
Running away to escape
Then dumbing away to not face another day
It’s so noisy, loud
Only so much I can take
I’ve poisoned my mind, my self, my life
But give it up, don’t let it gnaw, chisel, just try
Nothing comes from it
Nothing
And there’s no basis to the illusion it brings
So let it go, read a book, save the world, write a song to sing