Making T.V. worth its salt.
Ahhh, Self-help!
Do you think that it is just as important to write as it is to read? How important is it to think personal thoughts in response to the thoughts that reading and watching and listening triggers in your head? From my point of view, it is important for all people, not just artists, to express as much as they take in. I think of media consumption much like eating. If you don't exercise, then all the food you eat is just to fill your stomach and provides you with a heavy blanket of fat to keep you warm and immobile. Similarly, if you do not work creatively with all of the ideas and attitudes thrown at you by the various media that you absorb, then you will be awash in experiences that keep you from reacting directly to your situation and from understanding and expressing your own ideas. So T.V. might keep you from getting too upset about how hard you work or how awkward social demands are on you, but it also forces you to pretend that you are not upset, that it doesn't matter or that you are really upset about something else altogether.
You might say, Robusto, I bust my hump to enjoy my entertainments in the peace and quiet of my home. Don't go ruining it by telling me to do more work. To that I say: after only a short time of analyzing your media intake: perhaps three or four one hour conversations with a friend or colleague, you will find that you have established a new source of energy, something not only worth your time, but fun. It's fun because you get to choose what these tv and internet ideas mean to you.
Try to take the stuff of the media and make a couple of truths out of it. What do you think is true? This is hard to come to. Try to make a half truth.
Try to make something of your ideas.
They are yours, after all.
Just do it.
Do you think that it is just as important to write as it is to read? How important is it to think personal thoughts in response to the thoughts that reading and watching and listening triggers in your head? From my point of view, it is important for all people, not just artists, to express as much as they take in. I think of media consumption much like eating. If you don't exercise, then all the food you eat is just to fill your stomach and provides you with a heavy blanket of fat to keep you warm and immobile. Similarly, if you do not work creatively with all of the ideas and attitudes thrown at you by the various media that you absorb, then you will be awash in experiences that keep you from reacting directly to your situation and from understanding and expressing your own ideas. So T.V. might keep you from getting too upset about how hard you work or how awkward social demands are on you, but it also forces you to pretend that you are not upset, that it doesn't matter or that you are really upset about something else altogether.
You might say, Robusto, I bust my hump to enjoy my entertainments in the peace and quiet of my home. Don't go ruining it by telling me to do more work. To that I say: after only a short time of analyzing your media intake: perhaps three or four one hour conversations with a friend or colleague, you will find that you have established a new source of energy, something not only worth your time, but fun. It's fun because you get to choose what these tv and internet ideas mean to you.
If you want to be able to think quickly or act quickly, you had better challenge the media you take in. Find a way to use it. Find a way to incorporate or reject the ideas.
T.V. and Magazines and the internet generally offer you information as though it were essential truth or completely frivolous fantasy. It is neither, but a sort of half truth that tries to keep your interest but also makes you bored at the same time.
T.V. and Magazines and the internet generally offer you information as though it were essential truth or completely frivolous fantasy. It is neither, but a sort of half truth that tries to keep your interest but also makes you bored at the same time.
Try to take the stuff of the media and make a couple of truths out of it. What do you think is true? This is hard to come to. Try to make a half truth.
Try to make something of your ideas.
They are yours, after all.
Just do it.
posted by J. Benjamin Franklin | 1:37 PM
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