After I moved to Portland in 2002, I dropped my heavy TV. It still worked but the cable connection in the back broke off and I thought, "This is perfect." I didn't even hesitate to see it as a good thing. I knew that I had an issue watching too much television and this would enable me to control my content. I could no longer get network television (this was back in the old days, kids, when TV was free wirelessly to whomever set up an antennae). I would only intentionally watch movies and shows through my PS2 which mostly served as my DVD player. It was liberating and greatly reduced my media consumption.
A few years later, I got the ability to download shows and accepted that my TV viewing was still intentional and under control. Gradually, I just started buying into the hype of more and more TV shows and, even though I wasn't just watching whatever I could find by flipping through the stations, I was still spending a lot of time in front of the screen. The only difference was that it was a computer screen instead of a television screen.
Yesterday, my laptop stopped being able to connect to the internet through any web browser. I can see the wireless but my browser won't work which means I can't stream or download any shows. I'll admit that I hesitated this time to see the positive aspects of my predicament. I instantly got out my tablet (which has no problem connecting to the internet) and looked at the selection of laptops at Best Buy. But my laptop still works for a music player and as a word processor. It's just liberated me from all of the TV programming I've been taking in.
Right now, I watch six shows weekly on my own. I don't know what night all of them air on their respective stations but I typically pick a day in the week to catch up on them. I'll let some of them build up so I can binge-watch. As I step back from the situation, I can see that it's not healthy and so I'm going to let them go. Last year, I dropped Doctor Who just because I stopped caring and my world kept moving on. The year before or maybe it was two years earlier, I stopped watching Glee. Again, my world did not crumble. Recently, Andrew and I watched the Knick (which was surprisingly good) and the latest season of House of Cards. I felt the urge to plow through them so I could put them behind me. So...I'm viewing my viewing as a chore. Why do that to myself?
Maybe I'll go back to the shows that I'm dropping eventually but for now, I feel relief. I'm not a saint though so I will keep watching certain shows but only as a social situation. For the time being, I'm not going to have my shows that I watch alone, where I have to ask Andrew to "give me eight minutes to finish up." I watch shows with other people or not at all. Fortunately, Andrew is willing to watch Orphan Black so we'll watch that together (via his laptop or my possibly-soon-to-be laptop) when it comes back next month. And I'll watch Game of Thrones with my friends at their house. And I might even continue to watch RuPaul's Drag Race but only at a bar that's showing it. But if I don't do any of those, I know that I can manage and I'll be all the better for it. Thank you, virus.
What else?
My new thing was actually having a salted caramel latte from Fressen just a little bit ago when I had this epiphany.
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