Life without television
“I am sorry. Did you know I couldn’t last? I always knew it.” — Candy Darling, from a letter written on her deathbed, 1974
“Oh but the squalor of the mind...” — Morrissey, “You Know I Couldn’t Last,” 2004
I haven’t turned on my TV for more than a month now. Not even a DVD popped into the machine to watch despite the many things worthwhile in the collection. Nor do I care to watch anything online save for a few live clips on YouTube by some bands I like and, most of the time, I choose to just listen than watch. I’ve even unplugged the TV already and considering cutting off my cable connection. (I won’t.) If not reading or listening to records, I spend my time sleeping.
Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days. Though I had not watched TV for more than a month now, I realized that I had not only not missed it but I don’t feel at all disconnected. I’m still well informed about the current situation in the country and other goings-on though I only speak to a few people. I don’t trawl the interwebs for information either. Most of my time is spent deleting spam on my two email accounts and updating Tumblr. (Check it out: unomagazine.tumblr.com.) I use Twitter but hardly follow anyone but my friends. The few of them I really have. (The only celebrity I follow is Chris Carter and it’s not the one who created The X Files. I guess Mich Dulce is a celebrity and I follow her, but she’s a friend first and foremost so that cancels that out. And she asked — nay, demanded — that I follow her so I really had no choice.) Again, I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything although I kind of miss watching Ricky Carandang. (He’s my favorite news anchor.) Perhaps I’ll give him a call one of these days to see how he’s doing.
These days, or at least some of them, I think hard about such things, even if I don’t feel the need to reacquaint myself with my TV just yet. This is almost unthinkable since I’ve always held the belief that not watching TV is worse than not ever reading a book. It’s snobbery to think you can engage in any social debate today without watching Wowowee. I’ve also written and said in interviews several times before that TV should be like junk food: it shouldn’t be good for you. Books provide the nutrition; TV the taste. Although I don’t watch TV now, I still stand by those pronouncements. I still believe them. There’s no doubt I will watch TV again. I love technology too much to swear off it. I believe it has helped me get this far or where I am today.
Put it this way: the most reassuring sound to me is the buzzing of a refrigerator. The lapping of the ocean waves on a shore, the laughter of children cannot compete in my affections nor instill a sense of peace in me the same way. Despite all the science fiction (Harlan Ellison in particular) I’ve read, I don’t feel at all trapped in that techno-nightmare scenario of “having no mouth and wanting to scream.” I don’t feel threatened by technology at all. I feel comfortable ensconced within it, serenaded by its burrs, drones and whirrs and all its conveniences. Perhaps, though, I’m not as attached to it as I thought I was. But I’m glad that my TV is there, waiting to be turned on and keep me company. If anything, it keeps me from getting too lonely, from missing my wife too much. It keeps the light on even in a darkened room.
But for now, I’ll put off finding the remote control again. Or I’ll just wait for it to reappear.
