Getting Rid of the Mind-Waster

And Freeing Up Some Money Too!

When our son and daughter were children barely starting school (and long before MTV or cable, VCRs or DVDs), I tossed our television down the basement stairs one evening in total disgust.

It had been some adult-like (English speaking) company for me when they were in diapers and my husband was often out at sea, I’d somehow become addicted to it to the point where it was turned on first thing in the morning and stayed on until bedtime. No matter what the actual quality of programming might be.

Back in those days there was a dinnertime contestant program called “The Gong Show” that was a forerunner to current terminally awful “American Idol” audition segments. I’d prepared a nice dinner and sat down with the children to ingest when I suddenly realized the television ‘background noise’ accompanying our meal was an obese, middle-aged woman burping the national anthem.

Talk about totally disgusted! So I unplugged that sucker and tossed it. It smashed satisfyingly on the concrete at the bottom of the stairs and I wasn’t even the slightest bit rueful that I’d have to clean up the mess after the kids went to bed. It felt really good. And apart from a few short months over the years since, we have never had broadcast or cable television in our home since.

You’d be amazed at how many people in checkout lines, in grocery aisles, at informal and formal gatherings, and in workplace water cooler enclaves can think of nothing else to talk about than what’s on television. Who’s getting kicked off “Survivor,” how funny the last “Friends” episode was, who’s slated to become the new “American Idol.” It’s like they live their shallow, couch-potato lives vicariously through hypnotic programming that gets electron-beamed straight into their empty heads, and they think that’s somehow “normal.”

Even worse, they will scrimp on food, clothing and shelter in order to afford $100 a month cable packages - 400 channels of nothing worth watching. They pay dearly for the dubious ‘privilege’ of having their tastes and desires manipulated by advertising that comprises half of what they see. They have children who end up being raised by television, watching an average of 100 gun murders a week in prime time from the time they’re 2, and their parents can’t seem to figure out why junior is a discipline problem at school. I firmly believe television is directly responsible for at least 20 points off anyone’s IQ.

People are shocked when we tell them we don’t have television. “What in the world does your family DO in the evening,” they inevitably ask, as though everybody knows that without television people will die of immediate isolation and boredom. It always makes me laugh. We listen to music, we read books out loud to each other, we talk about what’s going on in the world, and we develop our creative skills by writing, doing art and craft projects, taking nice hikes in the woods, putting on plays and concerts, building a warm campfire in the back yard, playing frisbee golf, real golf, softball, world-ball, chess or other games… all those things people can do if they weren’t glued to the electron beam all the time.

We did get a VCR 15 years ago, and now have a DVD player too. So we rent movies, or watch some of the many classics and other fine programming we’ve collected over the years. So it’s not like we don’t keep up. We’ve got internet too, so can even keep up with the news in a more timely fashion than television allows.

Advice for my readers who are planning or trying to make a go of homesteading: drop television (broadcast or cable) immediately. Keep the unit and its VCR/DVD accessories for watching occasional movies, put strict limits on video gaming time. Don’t waste your money paying to be brainwashed and manipulated. You’ll be too busy living your life anyway to have time for keeping up with this terminally dumb TV show or other, and you’ll quickly find that you don’t care anymore WHAT happens to those fake people! You won’t miss them at all, and you won’t end up having missed your children’s childhoods and the best years of your own life.

You’ll never get the time back if you waste it, believe me. Best not to waste it in the first place!

Useful Links:

Kill Your Television

We All Know That TV Is Bad For Us

Things To Do Instead Of Watching TV

Your Child: Television

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Filed under Activities, Family, Homestead, Time-Management |