Thursday, October 21, 2004
TV de-addiction
This one is straight out of Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
"Sujith RK of Bangalore (India) wilfully and of his own accord, pulled out the cable connection to his TV, paid the cable guys their money every month and abstained from watching TV for a whole of 3 months from July to October in the year 2004"
The main reason for such a drastic step was the amount of ads that deluge us every single day on TV. You cannot watch anything with any kind of seriousness or concentration before being abruptly (emphasis on that, damn it!) jolted by a "message". I absolutely hate having my life disrupted in this fashion. In fact, I make it a point to not pick up the mobile over weekends just on this whim. Of course, not all of my friends see eye-to-eye with me on this particular point :)
I agree with them in principle but hey, whimsical fancies are rather illogical.
You won't believe the amount of free time I had once the idiot box was out of the equation. It's not as if I did not watch any movies in the meantime. I did and quite often too. In spite of that, I saved over 2 hours per day by not entertaining any commercials of any sort. The second major discovery was that the sofa in my house COULD face other walls and still function just as well. In fact, a major, more practical rearrangement of the furniture was possible just by acknowledging that the TV is NOT going to be turned on. I had time to read, to listen to music, to study, to read the newspaper thoroughly, to THINK. Oooh, save the brickbats on that one :)
Finally, in a moment of weakness, I did plug in the damned thing back and have been glued in ever since. I cringe everytime a movie breaks for ads and sorrowfully long for the delicious days when I was a free man. Will I ever have the will power to do it a second time? I do not know.
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"Sujith RK of Bangalore (India) wilfully and of his own accord, pulled out the cable connection to his TV, paid the cable guys their money every month and abstained from watching TV for a whole of 3 months from July to October in the year 2004"
The main reason for such a drastic step was the amount of ads that deluge us every single day on TV. You cannot watch anything with any kind of seriousness or concentration before being abruptly (emphasis on that, damn it!) jolted by a "message". I absolutely hate having my life disrupted in this fashion. In fact, I make it a point to not pick up the mobile over weekends just on this whim. Of course, not all of my friends see eye-to-eye with me on this particular point :)
I agree with them in principle but hey, whimsical fancies are rather illogical.
You won't believe the amount of free time I had once the idiot box was out of the equation. It's not as if I did not watch any movies in the meantime. I did and quite often too. In spite of that, I saved over 2 hours per day by not entertaining any commercials of any sort. The second major discovery was that the sofa in my house COULD face other walls and still function just as well. In fact, a major, more practical rearrangement of the furniture was possible just by acknowledging that the TV is NOT going to be turned on. I had time to read, to listen to music, to study, to read the newspaper thoroughly, to THINK. Oooh, save the brickbats on that one :)
Finally, in a moment of weakness, I did plug in the damned thing back and have been glued in ever since. I cringe everytime a movie breaks for ads and sorrowfully long for the delicious days when I was a free man. Will I ever have the will power to do it a second time? I do not know.
Labels: Thoughts...
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Serious thought 1
Would you give an old geezer wheezing down the road an helping hand? Would you help that old lady struggling with shopping bags a much needed respite? What's that I hear? All of you? Everytime? Wonderful. I have the dubious honour of addressing a big bunch of liars! :)
Now before you all drive down with pitchforks and stakes to my house...quite a lot of you know where I live (or do you, sv? :) ) let me explain. Picture yourself as that geezer or old lady some 10-20 yrs from now. What would you do if someone gave you the chance to "help" yourself 20 yrs hence? Well, all of us have that chance. How many of us take it?
I am talking about controlling your diet and 'committing' some regular exercise just so that the future you can walk a little easier, feel a little less tired and live a more painless life. I am talking about studying a little harder, working a little more so that the future you would not have to worry too much about finances.
But seriously, can you imagine a 20 yr old abstaining from drinking/smoking just to help out a 40 yr old stranger?
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Now before you all drive down with pitchforks and stakes to my house...quite a lot of you know where I live (or do you, sv? :) ) let me explain. Picture yourself as that geezer or old lady some 10-20 yrs from now. What would you do if someone gave you the chance to "help" yourself 20 yrs hence? Well, all of us have that chance. How many of us take it?
I am talking about controlling your diet and 'committing' some regular exercise just so that the future you can walk a little easier, feel a little less tired and live a more painless life. I am talking about studying a little harder, working a little more so that the future you would not have to worry too much about finances.
But seriously, can you imagine a 20 yr old abstaining from drinking/smoking just to help out a 40 yr old stranger?
Labels: Thoughts...
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Gaia has 'got ya'
Ever wondered what life would be like beyond the solar sysytem? Of course you have. Everyone has. I think it's something to do with the plantation being more envious on the other side of the nefarious dealer of stolen goods.
Anyway, just the other day I was staring out of the window of a moving bus while it was raining heavily. My train of thought chugged along the lines of whether there would be rain (of any kind) on other planets, if and when will man colonise other planets, you know...just the average kind of thoughts after finishing a Philip K. Dick novel. Suddenly, I had a more scarier thought...What if Man is never intended to leave Earth? I mean, what if Earth has some kind of life nourishing force that Man needs to remain alive? They say that Gravity would have been discovered long ago if it has a tendency to shut down once in a while. In other words, some things have to be absent for a while to realise their presence. In such a case, what if you realise the absence of this force only after say, leaving the orbit of Jupiter or after the Solar System?
Man has only been to the moon so far; hence this is perfectly valid paranoia...name one person who can refute it with proof!
We are already overpopulating the Earth, replenishing its resources and generally playing havoc all in the hope that someday we can leave home and settle elsewhere. Imagine the scenario when the news breaks out on Earth that all 18 (or 50??) billion will have to stay home, its just not safe out there.
Scary, huh? :)
Signing off with some topical copy-paste from Pyramids by Terry Pratchett:
"And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, lost in that Zen-like contemplation which occurs at moments like this, that there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in front of him. It's not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a thoughtful lad. Especially one who has to wash his own uniform. "
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Anyway, just the other day I was staring out of the window of a moving bus while it was raining heavily. My train of thought chugged along the lines of whether there would be rain (of any kind) on other planets, if and when will man colonise other planets, you know...just the average kind of thoughts after finishing a Philip K. Dick novel. Suddenly, I had a more scarier thought...What if Man is never intended to leave Earth? I mean, what if Earth has some kind of life nourishing force that Man needs to remain alive? They say that Gravity would have been discovered long ago if it has a tendency to shut down once in a while. In other words, some things have to be absent for a while to realise their presence. In such a case, what if you realise the absence of this force only after say, leaving the orbit of Jupiter or after the Solar System?
Man has only been to the moon so far; hence this is perfectly valid paranoia...name one person who can refute it with proof!
We are already overpopulating the Earth, replenishing its resources and generally playing havoc all in the hope that someday we can leave home and settle elsewhere. Imagine the scenario when the news breaks out on Earth that all 18 (or 50??) billion will have to stay home, its just not safe out there.
Scary, huh? :)
Signing off with some topical copy-paste from Pyramids by Terry Pratchett:
"And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, lost in that Zen-like contemplation which occurs at moments like this, that there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in front of him. It's not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a thoughtful lad. Especially one who has to wash his own uniform. "
Labels: Thoughts...
