When I was bedridden for weeks after being treated for cancer in 2003, I learned the power of television. I spent most of my time alone, drifting between sleep and blurred consciousness. I kept the TV on constantly. Banal sitcoms, hideous commercials, stupid talk shows, game shows, endless headline news programs. I watched it all with the desperation of an invalid. I was an invalid.
Television works best, in my experience, with the reptile brain. Passive, cold-blooded, impressionable. When we are truly immobilized by pain and weakness, we tend to revert to our animal natures, which focus on nothing other than escape from the realization of the truth of our situation.
More and more, people in industrialized nations are giving their free time over to television. Children are exposed to hours and hours of television. If television works as a drug, as it did for me in my illness, I suppose watching TV can be seen as a form of recreational drug use for those who are quite well enough to be doing more constructive things with their time. This could be expanded to see a whole civilization as becoming addicted to the recreational drug of television.
If television becomes controlled by the Rupert Murdochs of the world, then the drug (TV) will be laced with the worst poisons: Messages about selfishness, antisocial individualism and materialism. What will be the antidote for this poisoning of millions? Who will have the power to administer it? Will the suppliers of the poison not be poisoned by it themselves?
Turn off the remote. Do not poison your mind with commercials. Participate in media which allow your participation and independent thought. This too is part of practice.
