Television
That which entertains us, no, not entertains, but knocks us unconscious. At least American television. So many adverts, over and over, the same commercials on every channel and it even reaches out from the Tele to the radio and then to print, like the film The Ring. It is all so mindless and incessant.
I believe that ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) can 100% accurately be attributed to the viewing of overly commercial television from a young age. Scenario: Youth watching a cartoon. The cartoon is on for ten minuets before it is interrupted with a series of commercials. The attention is lost, then the program continues at another interval of ten minuets and the cycle continues. The young forming brain is being conditioned to be attentive in short bursts. Even if they actively view the commercials, each advert is only about a minuet in length and about five at a time.
Most American parents think nothing of sitting any child as young as six months old in front of some hyper real television program to buy themselves some time, to begin inoculation of this insane culture that these tiny innocent creatures were born into. Osho would consider this a crime of ignorance.
For nearly six years I was, at least in my home, television free. Maybe it had something to do with living in Europe, they are so much more conscientious about how they spend there time and developing their interests. So this granted me a great power when I stepped back into TV lifestyles while visiting the States. It seemed such a strange practice. To sit in overly comfortable chairs and sofas in front of this image box for hours and hours. The super loud, hyper-intense advertising was like watching someone get hypnotized. Like the spinning of an evil clown’s umbrella. If you suspend your vision comprehension, you will see this monster. A pounding of images, a flashing of a million lights carrying messages of secret ideologies with sign and signifiers, propaganda, patriotism, sex, consumption and the perpetuation of image addiction: headache.
In America it is true that most suburban houses will contain a television in any commonly occupied room. Families sit evenings and nights in separate rooms viewing sitcoms, sports, over reduced and dumbed Discovery shows. To an outsider who may have aerial, better then x-ray vision this custom may seem like a virtual drug use, as it leaves its participants drooling, lifeless and eventually asleep.
Entering back into the realm of television watching society with this power of perspective made everything broadcasted seem like a joke. It seemed like everything was an over dramatic Hollywood B-film, even the news. I remember looking at everyone in the room with laughter, but it was not shared. It was as if I could see right through the act and see it for what it actually was, the over use of bold graphics, music and . Like Rodney Piper in that classic 80’s film They Live! (A must see by the way.) It is as though people “evolve” with the TV, and those that have not see something very alien. Like traveling to another world.
It is interesting to consider the evolution of the television, not mechanically as much as psychologically. It is as if the Television is evolving/mutating to keep brains permanently entranced. So the louder and faster, the deeper it can penetrate our subconscious. It seems like it is trying to mimic the process of the brain. The length of time it takes for synapses to fire and send impulses and commit the information to peripheral memory. I suspect they hold focus groups on the subject. People sitting taking notes behind mirror windows, watching people screen hours of subliminal messages and then quizzing them for effectiveness.
What about these Nielsen ratings? As far as I understand, there are random televisions fitted with monitors that report how much TV you watch, what you watch, when and etc. But I suspect that with the recent mandatory switch to digital and the ceasing of broadcast, they will be monitoring every television, internet and phone, since it is all in one now. That is how they successfully evolve TV, they try to narrow down those scussefeul elements, then deliver them constantly and while your watching, steal all your money.
This is a real science, like a millennium long PHD is anthropology, statistics, Race relations, Political Science, Cultural Studies and business in one. I think the beginign of this PHD could be credited to someone like Edward Bernays. (Another must see documentary Century of the Self, it is a full length film available on google.)
TV is all over the world spreading information and this was good, in the beginning, but it has been infiltrated by a capitalist disease that intends on infecting the entire world. But the new TV is slowly becoming the internet. Sometimes people even do both, like a unconscious cerebral orgasm. Drooling TV, while facebooking, Myspacing or googling any little thought you may have, it is obscene. Like eating and masturbating on the toilet. Internet is worse then TV in so far as it is everywhere, carried on phones, mp3 players, computers, you can’t have a conversation with anyone in this city without them checking emails or googling to win a conversation.
I can’t help but want to remedy the situation with the recent reading of The Art of Mindful Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. If everyone was to concentrate for a moment on their breathing and to simply breath in and breath out and be utterly aware of it, Hanh says that something miraculous happens: you stop thinking and you are in the present moment. He suggests that we spend so much time thinking of the past and the future that we are not living at all. We are mindless and unaware of our surroundings. He suggests that we do this because we are afraid of the now, we rather say “Tomorrow will be better” . Perhaps this has something to do with the existence of time and our knowing that our experience is short and there will be an end and this brings us fear or being in the now. We rather watch TV and fiddle the phone and perhaps drink and take drugs.
Internet is more frightening, because its potential threat is higher in terms of sucking your life away for hours. Unlike television, the Internet is interactive and self gratifying, there is never “nothing on”. So it engages you longer and when you get into the nice sedative state it begins to inundate you with pop ups and faux informative advertising sites, flash ads and trash. Even an honest use, perhaps research may steal six maybe seven hours of your day away. I read an article that leads to another and so on. Now I limit myself to only objective research at one hour intervals for no more than three a day. It even makes my success rate higher since I have a sort of grocery list instead of just wondering hungry through the store.
I once watched some over dramatized program about the Universe’s creation and modern physics. It mentioned that the static or snow channel was actually background radiation from the Big Bang and the expanding universe. Which leads me to an appreciation of a wonderful technology, it was a discovery, it could be used in such lovely ways throughout the entire world, but instead it has been used to sell things we don’t need, make think we are suppose to live certain lives and spreads political propaganda and fear.
So, what can we do? Well, I was given a TV when I first moved to Miami by a friend. I was reluctant to accept, but it was bought new as a gift and refusal would have been hurtful. So there it sat, no cable, no rabbit ears. I eventually watched films on it and in the last year we found a white cable buried in the dirt in our most recent house. So we plugged it in and there was clear pictured, bright colored, non-stop American cable television. We watched it like we went on vacation to another planet. I took advantage of it as an indicator of the contemporary situation. I look at it like an anthropologist and what I see helps me to understand the little intricate mechanics of its slow psychological effect on this society and all the above considerations. But for most, I believe it is their reality and everything they know of the world outside of their family and home is what is brought to them via the television. Everyone should meditate, take deep breaths, be mindful, try to figure out how ones life could contribute to better the situation and change.
Serve others, think, grow your own food, permaculture, bicycle, collect rain water, speak truth only and recycle your TV.
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