the simple life | throw away your television

Let me say this simple. Throw your TV away. Just get rid of it.

There is one thing the is synonymous with the wealth & prosperity of the West, the TV. It took the crown from radio rather quickly after the hurdle of price was leaped. We are moving into a third generation of TV watchers. Most kids, even my own, couldn’t tell you much if any of what happened at school today. Ask them about their favorite TV show they watched last week; they will be able to explain the whole episode to you.

Full disclosure: I am a product of the TV. I watched a lot of it during my childhood.

Yes I watched a lot of TV as a kid growing up. It wasn’t until i began adulthood, moving out on my own, that I realized the waste of the TV. First it happened for monetary reasons. I didn’t want/have the money to spend on cable so I watched via rabbit-ears. That’s far less exciting, so naturally my taste for it wained.

Moving into a stable relationship, then marriage. I quickly became a homebody. That tv that I had been carrying around became a centerpiece of evening entertainment for us. I’m not sure how, but naturally staying home with children caused us to draw to the glowing images from the couch.

About a year ago though, I became frustrated at our habits. Viewing habits having been specifically crafted by the networks to draw you in more and more. What this does, is create an atmosphere where it is almost impossible to step away from the constant stream of content. I was tired of that irrational fear of turning off the tv.

I became fed up with our failures to try do it in ‘moderation’, because we constantly failed. The whole system is against you though. The networks’ viability is staked in keeping you in front of the screen, and they are very good at what they do. So one afternoon I took a bold leap, and simply put the tv in our shed, next to the Christmas decorations. There was some dissent among the rank & files of my clan.

We all quickly realized the splendid beauty that it creates.

New horizons open up, that you never realized were there before. One example: the TV is now not the focal point of the room. Take a look at just about anyone’s living room; if there is a TV it will have every piece of furniture pointing towards it. Without a TV, you can move couches so that, they actually face each other. Who would of ever thought looking at family, friends, or guest instead of at a box would be so enjoyable. You don’t realize how stifling a TV’s noise is, until you remove it.

Even though my house won’t be home to this year’s Super Bowl party, I serious believe taking the TV out of the house to be a huge step towards returning towards the wonderful world of community and hospitality—basic essentials to living meaningful life.

I know many would refuse to throw away that new HD 42″ plasma. To those I offer an alternative, I understand the techie desire myself. Disconnect the cable/satellite service. It is probably costing you $100/month, that’s $1200 every year! Most of the ‘important’ television content can be grabbed via antenna and most everything else via online streaming. Get yourself a media-center hooked up, and stream content. (This can be as simple, as that old desktop computer with some open source software installed—read free!) Then at parties you can even use that tv as a wonderful digital picture frame. Grab some beautiful art off flickr and now you’ve got some highbrow style.