It’s hard to function without television.
I recently did away with my cable. (Kept the internet, of course. Otherwise bad things would happen. Bad things.) When I first signed on with this cable company, they gave me a good packaged deal for a decent price – internet, lots of channels, and a movie bundle for six months. What I didn’t realize was that the movie package only lasted for four. So once they took away my movie channels, my monthly cost went up. How that makes sense is beyond me. So then I asked them what I would pay to reduce my 300 channels to the basic 72 after my six month deal was up. They quoted me a price that was even higher than what I was paying for 300 channels and no movies.
So I decided to quit altogether. Once the American Idol season had finished, of course.
I only follow a few shows anyway, and have learned to live without the others I used to watch in a former life. Just didn’t have time to keep up with them all. And after missing the first few weeks of the new seasons last fall, I found I didn’t really miss those shows all that much. All in all, there wasn’t a lot of serious tv watching going on in my house.
But I did tend to always have it on when I was home, mostly just for background noise. I would put the same shows on, but I never just sit and watch tv. Too boring. I’m always doing something else. Figured I’d just replace my visual noise with audio noise and play the local Christian radio station instead. May as well be filling my senses with something holy, right?
I didn’t realize how much I depended on that visual noise for entertainment. I can still get all the same things done that I did before, but somehow it seems harder and more work to make myself do them. I can definitely feel the gap there (and see it since my blank television screen is staring right at me from across the room).
I’m a little surprised at this finding. But I’m hoping my feeling of lacking goes away soon. And I’m a little excited to see what happens when I fill my subconscious with constant songs of praise to the Lord. Can’t beat that, right?
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2 comments:
I've been thinking of quitting my cable totally to save some money (but keeping the internet -- totally with you on that one). When I reduced my package down to just the basic channels a few months ago, I didn't have the TV on very much at all and was pretty productive, b/c those channels didn't really have what I thought I wanted to watch. Then I discovered that FRIENDS is on every night, and I also have the TV on just for background noise. I visited a friend this weekend who doesn't watch TV, and it really wasn't so bad. I've noticed that when I go to my parents' house and am flipping channels, nothing is really that interesting to me anymore. I used to be a reality tv junkie, but now find it pointless to watch. Like I'm wasting brain cells. (which I shouldn't do, b/c as Matt Haase told me recently, after turning 25, my cells stop producing and start dying off.)
Anyway, this may have given me the courage to cut the cable completely like I've been needing to do for a while.
P.S. You can just cover up your TV and pretend like it's an extra table.
P.P.S. I should really just email you. My comments are always so long!
I like your comments. :)
As for the brain cells dying off after 25...that explains a lot lately.
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