Television
Television.
I love it. I hate it. I need it desperately, at times.
I sapped six and a half hours of my life watching a tv marathon. I should be completely upset by this. And yet, the moment at the very end of that season, where PJ's best friend comes back and kisses her, then pulls back and looks at her with those eyes... it makes everything in my stomach wrench, and I feel like crying, it pulls at me so. Television is an escape, but it's also living and breathing and important. It gives a perspective on things that could happen. It breathes life into choices, and models what you want or need or are dying for.
I sit inside on this stormy day, and I can hear the rain falling as a soft shhh sound through the windows. The low, distant rumble of thunder. After watching something so emotional, I feel more aware, more alive. Everything moves me. Television shows are influential, and they give so much to the day where you watch them. For this one hour, maybe, I feel so closely connected to everything around me. I feel like the world isn't the same place, that I've been sleeping inside a ball of cotton while the earth turned under me.
I know not everyone gets this way, or finds the same elusive feelings from watching television. But for me, that's what it is. The characters are real, the situations are real, and I feel for them. I love the people I meet there, and I grieve their losses and cheer their gains. I love television, because it makes me feel something. But, I hate it, when I come back down to earth and realize that those lives aren't mine. I care so much about people who can never meet me, and that I can never help. People that, in reality, do not exist. But, yes, it matters.
It really does matter.
I love it. I hate it. I need it desperately, at times.
I sapped six and a half hours of my life watching a tv marathon. I should be completely upset by this. And yet, the moment at the very end of that season, where PJ's best friend comes back and kisses her, then pulls back and looks at her with those eyes... it makes everything in my stomach wrench, and I feel like crying, it pulls at me so. Television is an escape, but it's also living and breathing and important. It gives a perspective on things that could happen. It breathes life into choices, and models what you want or need or are dying for.
I sit inside on this stormy day, and I can hear the rain falling as a soft shhh sound through the windows. The low, distant rumble of thunder. After watching something so emotional, I feel more aware, more alive. Everything moves me. Television shows are influential, and they give so much to the day where you watch them. For this one hour, maybe, I feel so closely connected to everything around me. I feel like the world isn't the same place, that I've been sleeping inside a ball of cotton while the earth turned under me.
I know not everyone gets this way, or finds the same elusive feelings from watching television. But for me, that's what it is. The characters are real, the situations are real, and I feel for them. I love the people I meet there, and I grieve their losses and cheer their gains. I love television, because it makes me feel something. But, I hate it, when I come back down to earth and realize that those lives aren't mine. I care so much about people who can never meet me, and that I can never help. People that, in reality, do not exist. But, yes, it matters.
It really does matter.