No TV for 4-months and counting
by Richard Clark
21 February 2008
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3 Comments
No TV for 4-months and counting: “…it’s the quiet we love. We can hear the birds now, even with the windows closed. We can hear our neighbors children playing in their yard. We can hear each other. We think we can hear God sometimes, too. Still faintly, but better than before. All of that for $0 per month. Not a bad deal.”
(No Love Yet)
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keep going, it’s encouraging!
My wife and I were unable to get any cable when we got married; we couldn’t afford it and it wasn’t available where we moved. So we’ve been without “TV” for over 4 years now except for Netflix DVDs. Honestly, I have absolutely no intention of getting “TV” ever again.
Whenever I go to the gym and they have the news on I feel violent; I actually want to punch the screens because of the inane chatter that passes as “news” and the chillingly subversive commercials that are played in between the chatter. Strangely enough, I think I might be MORE violent now that I’m off TV…hmmmmmm.
Way back when, 15+ years ago, money was tight and it came down to a choice between cable and the L.A. Times. (Living on the coast behind a small mountain, cable was the only way to get stations.) The television went and the newspaper stayed.
I think I regretted the decision (which wasn’t mine) for like a week.
I’ve been without cable since then. It’s never been a consideration for me. It doesn’t even come up. It’s exactly like how I never even think to wear a strapless dress to the office.
I still have a nice-sized set, DVD player, a sizable collection of discs, and Netflix (so I can even participate in certain worthy television shows like LOST or The Office—albeit a year late). I try to avoid restaurants that have screens as part of the decor (or at least seat myself so the screen is not in sight-range), as I’m not accustomed to the frenetic barrage of images that commercial television proffers. It tends to hit me somewhat like that scene with Malcom McDowell’s character in A Clockwork Orange when they have his eyes peeled open and are reconditioning him. I don’t think it makes me more violent, but I do find television disorienting, not be conditioned to accept it.
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