Fish don't know they're living in water, nor do they stop to wonder where the water came from. Humans? Not much better, as we share a world engulfed by television. And the deeper our immersion becomes, the less likely it seems we'll poke our heads above the surface and see there must have been life before someone invented TV.
I enjoy the big S.A.T. words e.g., “Simulacra” and by including this word in your post it has provided me with more pieces of puzzle to connect the dots as I read on . . .
I look forward to additional posts from your site.
I think it’s fair to say then that we similarly need to leave film and television before film and television leave us.
I’ll disagree with this. Once one has the desire to quit television it is easy enough to give up. All one has to do is decide they want to live a meaningful life which an endless pursuit of pleasure and the distraction television provides is totally inconsistent with. Some people when quitting smoking find a substitute like chewing gum to help them through. I’ll suggest the same approach will work for television. Read a book. I wish doing agriculture without oil could be so easy.
Television is a shadow of reality projected on your cave wall. If the creators of television programming were responsible people television could be an accurate portrayal of reality but it is not and they are not. No matter how big a screen you buy truth will only be seen if it is pleasant and feels good. All you will ever see is what gets the biggest rise out of the most people and puts the most money in the pockets of the people responsible for its programming.
Do you really think a PBS documentary on Ukraine gives anything even remotely resembling truth? PBS became the mouthpiece of government several years ago. It lost all credibility to self aware thinking sentient beings. Now everything on television is sanitized for mass consumption. So if you want to be ordinary dull dumb and easily manipulated; by all means watch lots of television.
If what you mean when you say that you disagree is that one doesn’t need any fear-based reasons to quit TV [and film], then I agree. When I quit, it was partly for the reasons you give, and partly because I figured that if I was no longer going to make films, then I wasn’t going to watch the stuff either. In fact, it wasn’t for another year until I learned about peak oil. That being said, time is running short, and there are unfortunately more reasons now for quitting than just a more fulfilling life.
Perhaps there is no easy answer to how hard it is to quit TV and individual results will vary. I’ve known about peak oil for many many years now and time is running short, very true. But that said, I could be worm food before ***** really hits the fan.
Your picture tells me you will be around long enough to feel the pain. Like Candide, ou l’Optimisme we have learned “we must cultivate our garden” in this which is most certainly not the best of all possible worlds. It is not ‘all good’ as one false peak oil guru says and the thick syrup of optimism in which we swim will make you fat and give you diabetes like high fructose corn syrup.
TV films and video in general are not without some use but the medium of moving pictures and sound immerses one in artificial moments of reality. Unlike the printed word video does not stimulate a mind but dulls it as moving pictures anesthetize and suppress critical thinking. Reading in contrast engages a thinking brain because reading forces a person to think. There is much to be said for ‘being in the moment’ but it should always be a moment you are the master of and not a moment which belongs to somebody else.
Tend your garden, it is all you can do. People in general can’t handle the truth and this will not change. But fellow garden tenders can talk. At least for now.
Agreed. Particularly about how “Unlike the printed word video does not stimulate a mind but dulls it as moving pictures anesthetize and suppress critical thinking. Reading in contrast engages a thinking brain because reading forces a person to think.” As a crude example, how often does one hit the pause button during a documentary for some quiet contemplation? Not to say that critical thinking absolutely cannot occur from watching a film, but I think that it’s the visuals that are front and centre. As well, I can’t see any advantage to a film adaptation of a book, except for ease, which can be rather contrary to the goal of critical thinking.