Thoughts on the Bad Day and the Other World

So much to say today. First, I'll address the last entry. I'd had a bad day, for sure. And I was exhausted and scared about how my daughter was acting. And the thing I wanted was a television. Isn't that strange? I realize that a lot of people escape through TV and it wasn't uncommon for me, after a bad day, to just turn on the TV and veg. But how did I feel when I was done? I felt numb. My problems weren't addressed--they were stuffed down and not discussed. I didn't connect with my spouse/family. I shut out the world and lived in another world for a temporary spell until I felt sufficiently satiated with otherness. Simply put, I practiced denial.

That night, I sat around feeling bad. I talked to my husband about it which helped a bit. I talked to my friend on the phone. It was her daughter that was the subject of the clobbering, and she was incredibly reassuring. Then I read a book, I think, but fell asleep within minutes. I went to bed at about 9. And I needed the sleep. The next day I felt so much better. Optimistic, even, that I could work with my daughter and address these problems. What would've happened if I'd just watched 2-3 hours of TV? I wouldn't have talked to my friend or my husband. I wouldn't have gotten rest. I would've been mildly entertained for a little bit, but I would have turned the television off feeling, as I usually did before the September Experiment, kind of used.

Still, I admit that I am not over my addiction. There have been moments these past few days that I've had a lull in activity (hard to believe with 2 small children in my house) and wondered what might be on TV. I've watched my favorite show on the computer. But I must admit that as I watched it, I was more acutely aware than ever that I was wasting time. Really wasting time--that dwindling commodity which is oh so precious to me as a mom of 2 young kids who take up 99% of mine.

What I'm discovering though, is the other world. There is another world out there. It's the world of my family and the word of writers. I've always been a reader, but reading honestly sat second-fiddle to TV watching. I'm a writer, too, (struggling, yes) but I admit that much of my understanding of plot and story arc comes from television watching. Someone at my MFA program once asked me how I managed to write stories with intense plots. (Or something like that. I was flattered but perhaps they were asking me why I'm such a drama-queen.) My answer was, "TV." It was an ambivalent answer, something I wasn't necessarily proud of admitting, but it's true. Anyway, this other world I talk of is unfolding in front of me so beautifully. Just this morning as our 3-year-old slept late (thank you!) my husband and I sat at our dining room table reading voraciously. I read Steve Almond's newest book (Called (Not That You Asked) It's BRILLIANT. Buy it.) And in it there's an incredible chapter about Kurt Vonnegut who "viewed film and television as enemies of human progress." And at the same moment Greg was reading an article about Al Gore in The New York Review of Books. Gore's book The Assault on Reason apparently suggests that "More and more people are trying to figure out what has gone wrong in our democracy..." And "He offers a list of explanations...More than any other public figure today, he fixes the blame on the power of television. His lament is not the standard one about the medium's superficiality. He argues that a discourse dominated by television--it is, he notes, now almost half a century since television replaced newspapers as Americans' chief sourse of information--inherently corrupts the Founders' notion of the reasoned deliberatoin in the civic forum that they judged essential to a republic's survival."

I think this same notion applies to the human family. If we're not talking because the television always is, how can we create a healthy discourse? Television is the obnoxious in-law that dominates the room, interrupts everyone mid-sentence, and won't shut up. Despite the fact that he brought yummy desserts to which I am still addicted, I'm glad we banished him.