We reflect on the experience, laughing at its jokes, marveling at its intricacies, taking a poker to its shortcomings so we know we are still the dominant one.
We pull away, awash in conversation; I, however, silent.
My surroundings full of activity and engagement, I feel an inexplicable solitude. I feel lack.
I self-check, examining the paths of thought and tide of emotions I've encountered recently to gather evidence to the way I feel.
Nothing. Logic stat-
I respond to a question. Life around me continues.
Logic states I start at my last exposure and work backwards, searching for a source.
Answer. Question. Conversation around me. Car ride. Leaving theater. Movie.
Movie.
I wish I was that hero, the very likeness of goodness, charging headfirst into the hordes of evil and what is sure to be my doom.
I wish I was that man, the man who ran barefoot through hell and swam through high water for the woman he loves.
I wish I were able to answer the beckoning of distant lands and strange experiences, returning one day a mystery and legend.
I wish it were me in that movie. Experiencing those things.
I briefly examine my life, fitting it into scripts, plot, lighting cues, and camera angles, and I'm struck at its unavoidable boringness.
I still feel lack, the solitude of an empty heart. Ah well, those things only happen in movies.
The conversation turns to the next promising blockbuster, and our blood pressure spikes like that of an addict when he sees his drug of choice.
Awash in conversation, I forget my lack, though I only manage to cover it's emptiness with rotting boards destined to break again.
We reflect on the experience, laughing at its jokes, marveling at its intricacies, taking a poker to its shortcomings so we know we are still the dominant one.
--------------------
I'm going to be straight with you. Try as I might (and believe me, I did), I cannot write anything to convince you to drop Netflix, sell your TV, or stop watching movies so much. The primary reason being that there's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, the second reason being I am not that kind of writer.
I am not able to write about just anything. My passions and experiences are the flesh and bones of my scribbles, opinions may as well be water in my scribbling engine. All that said, I can only tell you of my experiences.
As I'm sure you may have guessed, the whatever-that-is in the italics above is a reflection of myself. I was the guy who left movies wishing he were the protagonist. I found myself daydreaming about the other worlds presented in television shows, envisioning how tales of my adventures would weave into its history.
I actually grew up without a television. We watched DVD's from blockbuster or the library on our computer, but we never had any kind of satellite or cable service. I always found myself being jealous of the kids who did, those able to sit in front of that screen watching the coolest stuff for hours on end.
When I got to college and discovered Neflix, it was like a horse had just stumbled into a sugar factory. I dove, and I dove hard. BBC's Sherlock lasted all of a few days, if that tells you anything. Show after show, movie after movie, I was hooked deep.
I started wondering if this was healthy, but quickly realized everyone around me had normalized this obsession, calling it "binge-watching" (which is odd since any other action with "binge" before it is considered wildly unhealthy). I justified my actions by claiming that I loved stories. Which, to an extent, is true. But it was also an excuse.
A few months passed before I started feeling strange. Sure, I had gone through a rough breakup, classes were tougher than ever, and I suddenly had to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up (graduation) - but it was more than that. Deep down I was really, really unhappy with my life.
I was doing two things: comparing my life to what I was seeing on the screen and medicating the resulting pain by watching the screen more. I was forfeiting relationships, school work, and social activities because I didn't want to make the hard decision to deal with my pain and choose interaction over isolation. Looking back now, I see that I honestly wasn't watching TV any more than your average family, and that really scares me.
During that time I only saw my life for what it wasn't. It wasn't some grand adventure across new lands. It wasn't some bizarrely intricate dramatic-yet-cheesy plan to get some girl. It wasn't heroic even in the least. Compared to what I was seeing, I was incredibly boring.
Hollywood is a business, guys, and like any business its goal is to make money. You're the user group, you're the one it needs to keep selling product to, and it does that by hooking you so you will keep coming back.
Hollywood's entire business platform is this simple statement: reality is boring. If that weren't true, any market for video entertainment would collapse instantly. Did you know that even the truest movies are at least 90% embellishment? Think about it - if you were watching those events play out exactly how they probably did, would you have paid money to see it? Of course not, it would mostly be incredibly boring!
We're not being sold movies and TV shows. We're being sold experiences. Or, more accurately, experiences we won't have because we think we can't. Are traveling to Iceland and seeing a few shots of it in a movie even slightly comparable? Then why do we sit around on couches wondering what far-off lands look like when we catch glimpses of them on screens?
Is pursuing and fighting for someones affection the same as watching a mushy-yet-clever movie? Is the satisfaction of getting involved in something bigger than yourself equivalent to seeing someone else do it on TV?
I realize you're reading this and thinking, "That's nice and probably true, but I'm fine. I'm not addicted or anything, watching stuff isn't bad." Like I said earlier, I can't write anything to convince you otherwise. I see movies and TV like I see alcohol - only damaging when you use it to be. What I'm starting to think, though, is that our culture has accepted as normal what is actually damaging.
I see a lot of families spending hours watching television, yet starving for minutes of interaction and daily investment in each other's lives. I see (and have been a part of) couples who slowly start to spend most of their time together watching movies and television rather than experiencing new things, making memories, or even getting to know each other better. I see a deep relationship famine in our culture, and a very cost-effective and doable solution is to drop the TV and movies.
I will leave you with this. Go out and experience stuff. Don't let TV or movies be a drug-like adventure fix for you the way it was for me. Yes, "adventure is out there," but you can't have experiences you don't choose to have. Choose relationships. Choose interaction. Choose the unknown, the unsafe. It doesn't have to be huge. Start with small, unexpected decisions. It'll grow from there.
Can you live without TV or movies? I really think so. Actually, I think you'll experience an unexpected amount of life and fulfillment without them.
"Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they're doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out... There are so many adventures that you miss because you are waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go" - XKCD
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