How I'm happier without a TV

It's not that I don't waste time. I waste plenty of time. Just ask my youtube history.

The main reason is actually that I don't deal with advertising in that same manner: where it is constantly being thrown at me and I'm too ridiculously lazy to change the channel.

The best example of this would be Avatar (as in the film). I didn't see the trailer for it until just before I saw the movie itself. I didn't hear any hype about scale or actors or any of that crap. I showed up, watched it solely for what it was and not for any of the ads. And I thoroughly loved it.

The same goes for products in a store. I don't have anyone's tagelines or theme songs jingling away in the back of my head, so I just buy what I like. Ex: Air fresheners. Febreeze Lavender and Vanilla is my official trademark scent. I love it until death do us part.

When I don't have media moguls (other that Stuart Mclean, whom I love) shoving products at me, I feel much more at ease with the choices I make for myself.

The same goes philosophically of course. I think the last time I watched bulk television would have been on my trip to Quebec, when I had nothing much to do after about 7pm. I watched a lot of movies and shows that told me a lot of things about the world that, in my experience, are not true.

TV Lie 1) "The world is a scary place." It's not. It's quite beautiful. The reason people are scared of the woods is that they don't have an intimate understanding of how natural systems work anymore. The reason we are scared of each other is that we don't build community around ourselves in the same way we have in the past. We don't know our neighbours, so naturally we're a little shy.

TV Lie 2) "People are good on the inside." This is not a contradiction of the first lie. Imagine a room full of kids in the dark because they don't know who's touching them and they are scared. People are not basically good. They are basically selfish. I hold all of history and modern politics as exemplification of this. And the book "Lord of the Flies".

TV Lie 3) "Some people get it all figured out." Hah. Also known as "happily ever after". There is no static state of contentment. We will always be searching to improve ourselves or our situation or, at the very least, searching for novelty. We love shiny new things (like chickens!)

Anyway, I know for a fact that some of my ideas got a little mucked in this post, but I'm sure you all get the general picture. I'm happy that I'm not trying to fend off the products and ideas that the television/media industries are trying to inflict on the population.

Except I reaallly like So You Think You Can Dance (but not the auditions).