Shortening of the Span

Now I might be dead wrong here, or I could be right. I am not informed enough in this issue to claim I know the truth. That being said, I cant help but feel a little bit disgusted at TV these days. I know that everyone else feels the same way. I don't run into too many people who can truthfully say "I Love T.V." Then why is it we are continually captivated? Now I'm sure that question has been answered a million times. Any reasonably intelligent person, given a minute to think about it, could give you at least a few reasons why they feel T.V. has a tight grip on the balls of our collective attention span.
Yet nobody seems to stop.

Everyone knows that the news lies all the time, that commercials are getting more and more idiotic, that T.V. is a distraction and (for the most part) a monumental waste of time. But take almost any group of individuals, put them in a room with no TV. People will talk, they will get to know other real people, and most importantly they will be living their own life. Now put a TV in that same room and people will eventually begin paying attention to the TV. No longer in their own individual realities, in their own lives.

I understand everyones need to escape once in awhile. Keeping that in consideration, I feel the need to point out that maybe now is not the time for such mass distraction. There is so much that goes on in this world that slips by us, simply because we now use our forms of media and communication to build false realities that slowly persuades us to lose touch with the real thing. Because of this, we now care more, feel more, for the spirited young doctor character who dies tragically, (when the actor gets a better job or gets fired), than they do for their fellow real humans who are (insert one of many human sufferings here) everyday.

Money makes the world go round. Some people can say this from experience. If you want to make any kind of difference in this world, you will undoubtedly need money. And lots of it. Those with the money right now are definitely motivated to keep it that way. Now if all forms of news and media were owned by the people, instead of private business, this thirst for wealth would not affect our consciousness, or our lives to the extent it does now. Big business owns the news, business dictates the news and business tells us what WE think is important enough to be broad casted, and irrelevant enough to be disregarded. So if anyone thinks for one second that things aren't made up, that truth isn't skewed, and that perspectives aren't bent to better serve the new masters of our consciousness, I envy them. Ignorance is bliss.

Thanks to T.V., we are now a fat, dumbed down, paranoid, diluted, distracted version of ourselves. Truth and real knowledge are being made harder and harder to find, while stupidity is everywhere. Businesses are following the trend of having short, catchy names for their company. Something short, easy to spell, and gets the point across. (Newspeak, anyone?) You want affordable groceries? Save on Foods. You want a bank with fair policies with ethic minded staff? Integris Credit Union. Advertising follows a similar trend, only leaves out the part about getting to the point. Ads these days are full of stupid repetitive jokes, and catch phrases that insult the intelligence. ("Stuff your face for less!")

In closing, I guess I just feel that if we know what we are doing is unhealthy, that we are being lied to and insulted, and that there is so much more to life, shouldn't we be doing something about it? Sure its easier not to, but if things are bad now they are only going to get worse if the condition is left to deteriorate. Its easy to believe the news when anything contrary to what they say is often demonised or disregarded. But as we all know, life isn't easy. Perseverance is not easy. Failure and surrender? Piece of cake. Easy as pie. So I'm not saying "don't watch T.V", or "be a freedom fighter" or something. Just keep informed. Question. Demand truth. Demand proof. Never surrender your consciousness. Its the most important "defense" you have.