The Time Vaster (TV) is in the living room, staring at us as we walk between rooms. We are not scared of its dark and blank looks for we are better off now than we were two years ago, we have time for other things in life. Like playing silly games with kids around the house, sitting down to draw something with a pencil and paper or reading a book.
Of course it was not an easy shift, especially when cable is so cheap. With just over $10 per month, you could have pretty much all the channels that are available to mankind, myriad creative ways to burn your time away in sitcoms, soaps, movies game shows and reality shows.
Once in a while we wish that we had cable so we could watch that one interesting music show or something. No doubt it is hard to keep up this discipline, especially when kids want to watch cartoon network or pogo, but it is much harder to have the subscription and be disciplined to watch selectively than to not have cable at all.
As in managing any habit, it is easier to abstain completely than to moderate a habit. To offset for some of the things we may be missing, we maintain a healthy collection of movies that are worth watching many times over. Like the collection of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation series for children and a few of Director K. Viswanath’s movies that are entertaining and value-based. We also make good use of YouTube and TED like channels for selectively watching what we discern as useful. As for the “Breaking local and regional news”, ignorance is indeed bliss. Trust me.
Arunachala Shiva on Veena by Dhurjati Mudigonda
We are cognizant of the fact that TV may not be the enemy in this new world of YoutTube, Facebook and thousands of other online distractions calling our attention to “Like”, “Tweet”, “Share”, “Pin” and “Tag”, the hundreds of games and apps in our pockets and on our iPads. The challenge may now be shifting from TV to second screens. We just have to develop a more conscious digital diet, the fight never ends, it just morphs into something else and the fundamentals of doing the right thing at the right time still apply.
If you want to be a journalist, perhaps watching news or reading paper might apply, although I contend that journalism the way we know it is dead and new form of crowdsourced Twitterisque journalism is the way forward.
Are you ready to take back your time from the monstrous cable providers who only care about their ratings and viewership and not a bit about our time?
Rama Krishna Govinda on Veena by Dhurjati Mudigonda
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