TV or not To Be

TV or not To Be

  I’m so old I remember when we got our first TV. Most people don’t. For
everyone, at least in the rich world, TV has been around all their lives. When
I was about eight, I almost chopped off the little toe on my left foot and
after Dad took me home from the hospital we stopped and bought a new black and
white.

TV will be around forever until something like holography replaces it.

Now, people can see themselves in the womb and see themselves dying on
the monitor. My friend, Vince the trail master, says if he knows he’s about to
die he’s going to head to the wilderness and hike until the end. TV lasts a
lifetime and in between, it serves as baby sitter, housemate, therapist, and
giant eye that hypnotizes you to buy and buy more.  But you know all that.

TV hypnotizes because it works exactly like the mind which is based on
good, better, and best. How we think, is a comparative process. I like
chocolate ice cream as good as vanilla but I’d better not eat a lot of it, if I want to feel my best.

Advertisements come into your brain and tell you that you can have a
better life, possibly even the best life. This means your life now is not as
good as it could be. Even if you have last year’s model, you could have a
better model, or the best model. If you don’t take the best drug, you’re going to have a heart attack. You’re going to have a heart attack?! . . . And guess
what, you get so mad at the TV . . . you have a heart attack. But you know all that.

Turn it off.