TV

by Skald

"Worries about one's love life, health, investments, family, and job are always hovering at the periphery of attention, waiting until there is nothing pressing that demands concentration. As soon as the mind is ready to relax, ZAP!, the potential problems that were waiting in the wings take over.

It is for this reason that television proves such a boon to so many people. Although watching TV is far from being a positive experience-- generally people report feeling passive, weak, rather irritable, and sad when doing it-- at least the flickering screen brings a certain amount of order to consciousness. While interacting with television, the mind is protected from personal worries"

--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

America, aka TV Nation, is an entire society hooked on the above cycle. Indeed, what keeps the average wage slave enslaved is precisely this avoidance of personal worries. The average person NEVER seriously considers his/her state in life. They never spend much time contemplating big questions about meaning, mortality, awareness, perception, thought, emotion. In fact, in America, such questions are considered farcical and childish... while trivialities are esteemed as "serious and important".

The key to freedom lies in the opposite direction... a repeated and direct confrontation with one's insecurities. This, in a nutshell, is meditation. The first step is to become aware of just how petty, chaotic, and frazzled one's mind is. Youve got to learn to recognize those programmed agitations before you can address them. That requires long moments of quiet and solitude... perhaps using a meditative technique, perhaps not.

Know your mind. Stop trying to escape it. Own your worries. Own your doubts. Become intimate with them. Banish your fear of them. They are only powerful when feared and avoided. Focus total attention on them, and you will find they lose most of their power.

TV is evil. More than any other media, it keeps people enslaved. While distracting them from their problems, it also makes them feel "passive, weak, and sad". TV creates weak people. The more you watch it, the weaker you become.

Banish TV from your life. Stop paying that cable/satellite bill. Stop running from the agitation in your mind. Dive into it. Know it. Embrace it.

Reclaim your mind, reclaim your power, reclaim your life.

Live again.