I've been mostly not watching television for the past year or so. Well, mostly since getting out of Mundelein. Kicked the habit in San Antonio and am having no trouble with it here in Mahwah where there's a pretty nice wide screen TV right down the hall. But I rarely feel the need to use it. I just go in sometimes, if somebody else is in there. Just to be sociable. I know I'm not any better than you who do watch it, but I don't miss it.
What have I missed? I've missed being daily disappointed by the Obama administration. I've missed daily being assaulted by all of television's yelling and selling. I've missed the general sleaze ... I know something's going on about Tiger Woods ... but only via fourth- or fifth-hand echoes over the internet ... and lunch-table chat.
I've certainly become an under-informed person ... and am willing to risk becoming an uninformed one.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against screens the way Mr. Wendell Berry is against screens. I'm loving old movies more and more, it seems. I watch them on my computers and only very rarely on that big TV down the hall. So, I'm still willing to let myself be entranced by electricity. I watch these dvds over and over again, picking this one or that depending on my mood.
But ordinary TV cuts into my movie time and my internet time. And any day now I'm going to slow down on the internet because it cuts down on my book-reading time & walking around time. It may even cut into my thinking about stuff time, but I'm not so sure about that since here I am ... right now on the internet, thinking about stuff.
And maybe it's time to think a little life back into this blog. We'll see.