TV

Why do we watch TV?

It's kind of weird if you think about it: in essence it's just sitting on a couch watching other people live their lives. 

Of course, the lives the people are living are manufactured to be interesting or entertaining, we wouldn't just watch someone's daily routine. 

Even Seinfeld, "the show about nothing", which I've been binge-watching recently, isn't an accurate portrayal of people's daily lives.

I think the reason for watching TV, whether it is sitcoms, dramas, action, mystery, documentary, reality TV, sports is we want to live the entertaining or action-packed or emotionally-exhilarating or socially-rich kind of life that we see portrayed on the screen but we don't want to go to the effort or the stress of trying to make that kind of life happen for ourselves. 

Or we don't necessarily want to take the kind of social or physical risks that people on these TV shows take ourselves but we want to see what could theoretically happen if we were to take the risks.

So would it be better if we didn't have TV, would we live more fulfilling and interesting lives if we didn't have TV characters to do the living for us? Sometimes I think this way. 

I've actually gone through periods where I've cut myself off from watching TV completely (and growing up I didn't watch tons of TV or movies compared to some of my peers so I often have felt out of the loop with some mainstream cultural references - but I feel I'm catching up now that everything's available via streaming services).

I think I'm coming to a balanced approach though like some other things, like I described in Ice Cream a while back. 

I think it's good people have been able to create these shows, to be able to express themselves and to provide us with entertainment during times we need it - like say during a pandemic and we have to spend a lot of time indoors or when we're working hard and we don't have a lot of energy in evenings to do actual socializing (but maybe it's work/life balance, and the nature of work that is the problem in society and if that changed we wouldn't be inclined to watch as much TV?).

Like ice cream and other things I described in that post, it is good to have things to soothe us, to help us "wallow" during emotionally-tough times but indulging in these things constantly and consistently I don't think will lead one to a very fulfilling life in the long run.

This being said though, I'm still stuck in an isolation room for a few days, so I'm likely going to spend the next couple hours "self-soothing" watching Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kraemer go about their daily pursuits :).