Picking and Choosing... To Veg Out or Not To Veg Out?

I grew up during the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Television was was in it's infancy and we had 3 channels from which to choose. At midnight, after a last recap of the news, an American flag would appear, waving in the wind, and the stirring strains of the National Anthem of the USA would stream from our tv set. Alternatively, a montage of landscape photos from across our country appeared at the end of the day and the music was America the Beautiful. Like us, the television station shut down for the night.

Entertaining myself meant going to the movies or reading a book. It might mean spending time with friends or my family. Or traveling somewhere by train or by car. I lived about two hundred miles south of Chicago, and I loved to go into the big city to visit family and see the sights and the museums.

Life in the fifties was simpler and in the small town where I lived, the pace of our lives was slower, managable and relaxed. When I was a kid, I was afforded the luxury of having some time to grow up, before I had to become "grown-up". Like all kids my age, I had problems and issues, but none which could compare to those problems with which my own kids had to contend. I had fewer choices in my life than a kid has today. But at least, the world hadn't yet started to change at an ever accelerating pace. Some basic things still remained true and valid from one year to the next. My life was maybe a little easier to live, than is my life now.

Tonight, I have drifted into these nostalgic reminiscences, because I found what I was watching on television sort of irritating. I had watched Men in Trees and Grey's Anatomy. I found both shows sort of short on substance and entertainment value. Like a lot of things in our world, television programming has evolved and changed over time.

I really am not sure why so many of the television programs today put me off so these days. I guess as the world has changed, so have I. I find many of these changes in our day to day life less than thrilling and sometimes very disturbing. Given that what we see on television is a reflection of these changes, that may explain why the shows on tv no longer have so great an appeal to me. Or maybe, it is because I have see it too many times before. There is nothing new or good or fresh being presented to me. But I know that there is a problem when there are times that I cannot find a show I really want to watch from over 100 channels.

That is not to say that I cannot find things to do with my time. The upside of having so many choices of how I might entertain myself is that I can opt to simply do something else. So I do.

I do a variety of things to entertain myself. I spend time surfing the internet and posting to my blog. I have fallen into the habit of doing at least one Sudoku puzzle a day, to keep my analytical skills sharp. I have rediscovered the pleasure of reading books, in their original format, on paper. Occasionally Marilyn and I will go out to a movie, if one looks particularly interesting or entertaining. Recently, we took in Night at the Museum at an IMAX theater. I chill out, listening to my favorite genres of music... mostly Broadway albums and easy listening. And among my favorite of things to do is to spend time with my best friend sharing a nice bottle of wine, when we can carve some time out of our busy lives to do that. And of course, I treasure the time that I can spend with my wife, my kids and my granddaughter.

There is a thread that runs through all these activities. I want to do more than just veg out in front of the boob tube. I want experiences that are richer, more mentally stimulating and more meaningful. The time I spend with friends and family are the best of times, because I can be with the people who mean the most to me. In short, if I am going to devote time to being entertained, I want a return on my investment. I want to put myself into situations in which I am doing more than just zoning out to escape the stress and the issues in my life.

In the US in the twenty-first century, we have no dearth of ways to entertain ourselves. There are a thousand ways to do that. Beyond computers and television, there are video games and spectator sports and clubbing and a long list of other ways as well. In fact, if I allowed myself to do it, I could entertain myself into mental oblivion. I don't want to do that.

There are only so many hours in a day. As Robert Frost wrote, each dayI have "...miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep." With so little time left in any given day to just relax and enjoy myself, I have figured out that there are a lot better ways to do that than to get addicted to forms of entertainment which are fairly empty of content or real value for me. Simply put, I have more important things to do with my time and my life.