I had a plan for an essay that I had already outlined about private schools and public schools regarding school uniforms versus the challenge of deciding what persona you want to present to the public, and needing to choose what to wear every day. But it doesn't interest me as much as what I'm working on now, which is a TV-free experience for Lent. I say for Lent, because that is a ritual I'm vaguely familiar with when people (Catholic people) give something up that they really enjoy, such as chocolate or beer. I haven't done any research into it, I just decided it would be a seriously challenging experiment for me to attempt to not watch any TV shows at all. My sister, who knows about such things as Catholic rituals, implied that I could make my own rules to a certain extent, so I am qualifying TV as actual fictional, scripted, and also reality, shows, as opposed to saying "no screens." So I think if I want to watch a show, it has to be a documentary or educational program, or episode, on TV or YouTube. If I want to do an exercise video (yoga or aerobics) then that's okay too. What's not okay is watching (especially binge watching) several episodes of something that is purely entertainment. Art instruction is okay, music on a video platform is okay if I'm only listening to it, but murder of the week series (that is my favorite) is not.
This is inspired by two main things: a long series of letters I wrote to my friend Barb about how much TV I watched as a child, and how I feel that affected my emotional growth and intellectual intelligence; and being very sick for a week recently where I watched so much TV (including the great shows Riot Women and The Change), that I felt quite brain dead from it all. Secondary factors are that I have a ton of books on my shelf that I haven't yet read, and a ton of art projects I want to finish or start, but I have been turning on the TV for comfort and entertainment by default instead of spending my time on things I claim I want to do. I literally have pages of lists of shows I watched growing up, and pages of lists of shows I have watched as an adult, want to watch, or currently watch regularly as new episodes come out. It's actually becoming disturbing when I have seen so many different television shows that I can no longer remember them all and don't know the names of ones I have seen. If I can do this successfully, I might even finish the video games I started a long time ago (Outer Wilds, Half-Life, Portal, Fallout 4, Undertale, and more), because I decided interactive video games definitely don't count as TV (especially since I don't fall into them for hours at a time like I do television shows). I'm also hoping to go back and complete the GIMP digital photo editing class I was almost done with when I "took a break" several months ago.
I have already started reading four books I either started and never finished, or wanted to revisit but never made the time: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Traveling Backward by Toby Forward, The Four Agreements, and The Answer is Simple by Sonia Choquette. I stayed up late finishing Traveling Backwards, which is short and easy because it's a middle school book. I normally would have played a TV show to fall asleep to, which I have been doing lately instead of what I used to do (play an audiobook or read an ebook in bed), but I was so engaged in the story that I had to finish it. It's about a little girl, her grandfather who is dying, and a magic potion of youth. It was surprisingly relevant to the Ram Dass and Timothy Leary documentary I recently watched called "Dying to Know."
So, it's only day one. I watched the rest of the Starfleet Academy episode yesterday morning that I fell asleep to the night before, so I can't count yesterday. As of now, I am already feeling withdrawal. I think the best case scenario is that I become more prolific in the things I say I want to be better at, and do more of, like art, reading, communicating, exercising, and even work tasks. I also have a lot of mending I have been saving for years to do "when it's dark and cold during winter time..." but TV took precedence as the preferred activity during the cold, long, dark nights. Yes, I could have effectively done both, and I occasionally did (knitting or sewing on a button), but it seems that I wanted to watch TV with my whole attention (I don't know if that's the same as "Zoning Out" if you're fully invested in the program ... but I certainly wasn't doing much thinking while watching. The scripted actors always do the thinking for me). So the best case is that I increase my personal growth and spiritual attentiveness by doing things (or even not doing things, like meditating), and become a more fulfilled, joyful, and productive version of myself, even possibly reversing (or reclaiming) some of the thousands of hours I spent with all my random "TV families" as a kid. The worst thing that can happen is ... I can't think of anything. If I really do it for forty days, I can't see a downside, besides having lots of shows to "catch up" with later.
I will definitely write more about this next time, because it will be a big deal, and a mini miracle, if I actually make it a whole week. Peace and blessings to all, and good luck to success with whatever you are trying to give up, whether for a week or a lifetime.
