To illustrate: One day, I came across the TV show, Mr. Robot while casually surfing the net, and that show has entirely changed my thinking.
How do I make sure I am not missing out on any other entertainment series that I would love but don’t know about.
Congratulations! You have just pretty much given a textbook example of a “First World Problem!”
I don’t want to lecture you but there are planty of great things that life has to offer despite entertainment of various media. Things I recommend:
- Going for a walk in nature. Get out in it. Commune with the spirits of the earth. Get in touch with your animus/anima. Roll around with bears or whatever.
- Playing with your children. Or helping them do their homework. Whatever. I believe that children are the future. Treat them well and let them light the way. Show them all the beauty you posess——INSIDE. They are really such a joy.
- Making children. The purest joy in life.
- Getting your mack on. By which I mean, searching for someone to make children with…or at least to perform the act which people perform to make children. I mean it doesn’t necessarily have to result in children—ever. It’s still fun. It’s what makes the world go round. The French call it “The Little Death.” La Petit Mort. Ooh la la.
- Social events. Sexual tension. Milling and laughing with people you wish you could literally throw under buses. How is business lately, Joe? Hot enough for you Cyndi? How ’bout them Bronco, Stu? Sure, everyone you know are assholes, and you will end up either sleeping with someone you regret or wishing you had, but you’re living life man!
- Go out with some friends to a cafe. Few things in life offer more pleasure than a light amusing chat over the hot beverage of your choice. Catch up on the past few weeks; make plans for good times to come! Our friends are the most valuable commodity we have.
- Throw yourself into your work. Make hay while the sun shines, goes the saying. And I couldn’t agree more. You will have time to enjoy the fruits of your labor when you reach retirement age. You know what they say: 60 is the new 32!
- Take up a constructive hobby. Whether your an arts enthusiast, a sports lover or game player, there’s a whole world of opportunities out there.
OK, lecture over. Sorry, but I had to get that out of my way.
Seriously you can’t keep up with the plethora of delights offered by modern media.. And it’s a weird feeling. Media could stop suddenly tomorrow and you would STILL never be able to consume all the worthwhile print/TV/film/music media that has been made before you gave up the ghost and went to your grave.
So when it comes to entertainment here are my strategies to maximize my input :
- I multi-task.For example: I listen to music when driving or when going for a walk/jog.
- I prioritize. I like reading so I try to limit myself to 5 hours of TV and one film a week, after work. The rest of my free time is devoted to reading.
- I have a system to my reading, so I read a varity of things. I read literary fiction, historical fiction, the odd fantasy and occasionally a biography. And then I read short stories between books to find new authors and also I read non-fiction books, slowly. If I can’t read everything, at least I can get a well-rounded reading experience, I figure.
Yeah, real life ROCKS, and is only as magic as one wants to open oneself up to the possibility of it being, eh... One day, when real life doesn't distract me so beautifully, I'll finally be able to sit down and watch the entire back catalogue of "Game of Thrones", oft recommended to me by people I trust, from start to finish...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Obviously the pictures were meant to be ironic, but only because after I wrote the words did I realize what an obvious and preachy message it was, so I wanted to leaven it with some humor.(Don't know if it came across.)
DeleteI was surprised and saddened that a young person would ask me such a question.
But really, it's all about facing one's mortality, I figure.
on the other hand, one of the reason I did put the ironic pictures in is that there's something so sad about how someone else chooses to fill the brief time they have on earth.
Whether it's a TV series, sport, tying one on a pub, watching the World Cup or chasing after women or doing drugs, or any of the things I listed above, ultimately it's an individual's call. Crowing one's immersion in "real life" rings hollow when any of our lives are filled with distractions and untruths, anyway. I have yet to meet a human being that was't deluding themselves somehow, and that's just a fact and I'm not above this fact myself.
Which is why this blog entry is trying to be funny but not really working.
Because no matter what you're doing ,you're probably deluding yourself somehow and missing out on something. For some like the teenager who wrote to me, it's a TV series; for also it might be, I don't know, physical spryness, or companionship or children, seeing distant lands or testing yourself against the bare elements or fighting in a pitched battle.
. None of us has it all and all of us are experiencing only a fraction of what life has to offer..
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