Beware! TV Kills

In Crack in the Box, Peter Hamill compares television and drug use. The correlation he describes is that television has likely been the cause of the countries rapid inclination in drug use. An increase use of television has created within us a need for more stimuli, acquired by means of less effort. To understand this more clearly, we must look closer at the similarities between drug use and television. So what are the similarities that Peter Hamill provides us between drug use and television?

Peter Hamill suggest a variety of similarities between the two, one of which is that television viewers are unable to experience life while watching television. An individual may watch a sitcom, action movie, or drama and experience a variety of emotions without actually living to experience them. A drug user will exhibit the same behavior by shooting up and feeling that high with no real life work to achieve it. Both promote laziness and provide both users the sense that no effort is needed to feel instant gratification.

Another similarity that Hamill suggest is that television is a consciousness-altering instrument, taking the user out of the “real world” and into a plethora of other realities. Users abuse television as an escape from the ills of society, from the pangs of their own trials, and to avoid facing those problems with conscious thought to solve them. Drug users also use their illegal substances as a form of escape from the “real world” because life is “too hard”. Television makes life appear simpler, a drama unfolding where particular problems are often solved within half an hour to an hour and result in a happy feeling. In the real world, problems do not always work themselves out like this, in fact it would be fair to say that in order for an issue to be worked out so quickly would take an immense amount of effort and energy emotionally.

We must understand that the most important effect of both addictions is the quick change in moods. Hamill explains that this change in moods is not earned, that a television user can simply hit a button and be instantly gratified and mood-altered almost as quickly as taking a pill. As I mentioned before there is no real effort to watching television, you simply turn it on and change the channel. You can lie comfortably in your recliner or sofa while consuming Laffy Taffy or Mike-n-Ike’s (my personal addictions). If I am feeling blue or sad, I effortlessly find a sitcom or comedy to make me laugh. And none of it requires any real imagination or thought process to acquire that laughter. Television even provides us auditory cues for when to express a given emotion, with background music or laugh tracks. Nothing is required of us, we merely sit and watch and allow ourselves to be spoon-fed emotions like an infant.

We must make an effort to put up safeguards to prevent this addiction to instant gratification of emotions. It is imperative to our mental health and stability. How do we go about putting up these firewalls of protection from television addiction? Hamill makes some suggestions on the best way to approach this. First we must take control of the television and its use by our children. Allowing them to watch television selectively and not just randomly based on what they want to feel. Finding quality programming that will allow them to walk away and think about what they have viewed. We must also limit the amount of time our children are in front of the television by encouraging them to go outside and play, to read a book, or some other constructive activity. These activities will exercise their ability to process their own emotions by some means of effort. Second, we must educate our youth in television as a subject, much like literature. This enforces that the drama unfolding on the screen is an art, an expression of creativity, and challenges them to consider ways of improving entertainment as an art.

After watching a movie with my own children, I always challenge them to consider how they felt about the technical merit of the film. How did they feel the actors portrayed their perspective characters? How did they feel the costume department did to convey a certain time period? How did the music move you in some way? What could have been better about the way musical score was used in certain scenes? Examining the hard work that the many people provide to entertain us allows us to correct in our eyes that movies and television are works of art, not reality.

And finally Hamill suggest that we need to live life, to read, to think. We should experience external stimuli which will enable us to process our own emotions by thoughtful consideration of the event or experience. This requires limiting our exposure to television and media, so that we may experience real life and allow real life to aid us in experiencing genuine emotions.

In conclusion, we must take this knowledge and find applicable measure for our lives. While it may be impractical to obliterate all forms of media for the specific use of increased stimuli, we must still control our urge to haphazardly utilize cheap methods of feeling emotions. Emotions are our humanity and to negotiate them unwisely would be our unending failure as a species. By controlling our ability to instantly gratify our emotions, we will become more equipped to deal with the issues and problems in our lives not simply to escape from them.

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This was a paper I had written from an article written by Peter Hamill "Crack in the Box". This article can be found at the following link.

http://www.petehamill.com/crackandbox.html

To be or not to be, educated!

In our quest for meaningful purpose we assail ourselves with a barrage of knowledge, useless and useful facts, theories, ideas, and concepts. This quest starts when we are of young age, preschool, elementary through high school. From our youth we spill over into college, and, all the while, we are absorbing countless bits of information. To what end? To be educated? What does being educated mean?

Jeffrey Gordon takes a long hard look at these questions in his “Introduction: The University in Your Life.” Gordon provides for us six key characteristics of an educated person to help us better understand what being educated means. Let us take a moment and reflect on these six characteristics and determine for ourselves what being educated is all about.

The first is a Personal Standpoint. It is a position we take, throughout our lives, on the numerous ideas laid within our hands. Directly influenced by our parents, educators, religious leaders, politicians, and media, as well as the world around us. They serve us to critically take thought of ourselves surrounded by the world we liven in. They shape and mold our beliefs, morals, and convictions upon the things we feel pertinent.

The capability to Disinterest Reflection is to not value the worth of thought on the immediate too heavily. Seeking out how the immediate thought is part of the grand scope of reality. You reading this paper may be processing the thought of its interpretation, extending the thoughtful process of its interpretation herein to envelop it around your life, and the lives around you. Pushing to search for its applicable measure is the capitalization of your ability to see the bigger picture.

Thoughtfulness, is the third characteristic explained by Gordon to be the resolve of capturing existence and to maintain the raw sensory input of experience for the sphere of influence to conscious thought. LIFE!!! With the introspection of our lives experiences in relation to how they influence our thought is the true quality of life. To sit idly on the sofa in our living rooms scared of what may be outside that door is to constrict our ability to fully absorb what life has to offer us mentally by way of stimuli. An educated person might grab for the chance to jump from a plane, to process the thought of what it is like to enjoy the wind pulsing over your face. Then files the experience back for future use, and contemplates the relation to other possible experiences that they may pursue.

The Mastery of Language, while the supercilious may fling it about as if to wield a trophy saying, “Look at me, I am educated,” it is still none the less palpably of an individual that takes great care of the words they use. When we respect this vehicle of expression, we take the time to carefully apply thought into what it is we want to say, how we want to say it, and the purpose of what we say. Our ability to communicate is an example of the time we have spent contemplating how to express our ideas that transform the lives around us.

Solicitude toward Humankind is the drive to have some positive impact on the condition of the human community to which we are a member. That by our studies of history and literature, we understand the triumphs and suffering of humanity. Propelling us to make a difference by accepting obligation, for the better, of human destiny.

Finally, Gordon defines the educated as having Life as an Adventure of the Spirit. Encompassing the revelation of only the greatest of human achievements with the a sense of human potential. By contemplating all of the wonders of man, be it thought, idea, creative expression, and achievements, we enrich ourselves with the possibilities of making our name a positive, permanent mark in historical culture. This way of thinking opens ourselves to the question of how best a human being may live his or her life? Moreover, what is the most meaningful of accomplishments we may undertake? By accepting life as an adventure of spirit we become more able to answer these questions, and further apply them.

In summation, I would like to share with you which of these characterizations best describes and educated individual. While Jeffery Gordon eloquently describes in detail these characterizations, I cannot help but think that he overlooked the most important of all, one which drives us to excel in adapting all of the character traits Gordon provides.

To be Intellectually Humble, in my opinion, is by far the most defining characteristic of them all. The ability to introspectively accept that we are not educated, or intelligent. It is a perception of self that forces us to push harder, think more clearly, open our minds to new ideas and concepts at all times. While our formal education may come to end with the successful completion of a college career, we grasp on to the idea that our education is so very far from over. From the moment we are born into this world, to the moment our last breath escapes our lips, we possess the ability to be in a constant state of learning. This alone is the driving force to an infinite world of knowledge and critical thinking, which will ultimately lead to an excitement for understanding ourselves and the world around us. Without this trait, we do not push ourselves to excel. We walk blindly, lacking the proper desire to want to understand, to think on a critical level, to soak in all that life experiences have to offer us, to absorb great literature, and to strive for a magnificent vocabulary. Ultimately, intelligently humbling ourselves exceeds the limitations of our true educational potential.