I'm back Among the Living
Things are finally returning to normal after so long. I would have updated this eons ago but everything seemed to get in the way. Horrible sickness, then loss of phone and DSL lines due to a drunk driver, then a major storm hitting the Texas coast line, which was no fun at all. Then after that recovery and getting life back on track and waiting for the most basics of modern life to return to us. And once everything was back in some order came work, returning in full force trying to get the college back and running once more.
But this time away from the modern world gave me a lot of time to think of things. To embrace the more wonderful world around us and just do some honest to god thinking.
Reading is a lost art form. There are those who say it is slowly becoming lost but I think the tide has already rushed the beach. And all the pretty sand castles are gone. And it took loss of all these modern distractions for me to rediscover how much I loved reading. Where as in a year I only read a hand full of books, I quickly consumed twice that number in a week without television or lighting. And now that we are back with electricity and all the pretty petty distractions of this new world I find myself sliding back and that scares me deeply. I mean it, after doing a lot of thinking I've come to discover TV is the most horrific thing in our world today. In small doses it's inquaious, but it's a dangerous drug.
I have the philosophical questions:
Was television a harmful creation or like all things, did we find its potential for abuse and abuse it? Does our removing ourself from the natural world aid in our thoughtless destruction of it? Out of sight out of mind? With today's media that shows a simulated fantasy like landscape, do we buy into that one instead of the natural one that lays just outside our front doors? Do we learn any lessons that aren't wrapped up in a thirty minute / hour plot? Can we move back to being real people that spend time with one another communicating instead of sitting around as a group in front of a glowing box?
There are people who are living what we would call horrible lives in third world nations, but they're much happier then we are. Our conventional twisted logic would tell us that should be reversed. But it's not. They don't exist in a blissed out Shangri La like we'd like to but they live a happy life in the real world. And, you may refute this idea: But for further support of my reasoning: Look out our own ancestors, they did not have all the bright light distractions we have now and they lived happy lives.
But this time away from the modern world gave me a lot of time to think of things. To embrace the more wonderful world around us and just do some honest to god thinking.
Reading is a lost art form. There are those who say it is slowly becoming lost but I think the tide has already rushed the beach. And all the pretty sand castles are gone. And it took loss of all these modern distractions for me to rediscover how much I loved reading. Where as in a year I only read a hand full of books, I quickly consumed twice that number in a week without television or lighting. And now that we are back with electricity and all the pretty petty distractions of this new world I find myself sliding back and that scares me deeply. I mean it, after doing a lot of thinking I've come to discover TV is the most horrific thing in our world today. In small doses it's inquaious, but it's a dangerous drug.
I have the philosophical questions:
Was television a harmful creation or like all things, did we find its potential for abuse and abuse it? Does our removing ourself from the natural world aid in our thoughtless destruction of it? Out of sight out of mind? With today's media that shows a simulated fantasy like landscape, do we buy into that one instead of the natural one that lays just outside our front doors? Do we learn any lessons that aren't wrapped up in a thirty minute / hour plot? Can we move back to being real people that spend time with one another communicating instead of sitting around as a group in front of a glowing box?
There are people who are living what we would call horrible lives in third world nations, but they're much happier then we are. Our conventional twisted logic would tell us that should be reversed. But it's not. They don't exist in a blissed out Shangri La like we'd like to but they live a happy life in the real world. And, you may refute this idea: But for further support of my reasoning: Look out our own ancestors, they did not have all the bright light distractions we have now and they lived happy lives.