Whoooooohoooooooooooooooo!
Life changes dramatically in first your attention span and patience. The Dali Lama said that the world would be radically shifted if more people learned to sit quiet for 15 minutes alone.
So I often meditate, alone, quietly. Most times I read, 5 books a week, a lot on subways as I’m traveling to and fro. But other times I simply sit calmly, hands folded and listen to my music, simply BE for the trip.
Often roommates have nervously complained, my parents did too, okay lovers as well—-that they couldn’t tell when I was home, in my bedroom, because I’m pretty quiet. It’s not like I’m tiptoeing I’m just generally writing—-I hand write all of my books first, or typing up hand written notes or reading or reading stuff online.
When I do watch Netflix or Amazon or Hulu, I tend to watch it with the subtitles on. Now, I know I’m not going deaf but I don’t like lots of loud noises, sounds, etc. and the constant barrage of music in things as well as the dubbing and sometimes speed which people speak makes reading along easier. Plus I often get a deeper meaning from the film. I also use this as a very specific, layered teaching method when I use videos in class—-it forces people to detach from becoming mentally lost or absorbed into a video. And to concretely absorb the ideas, point. Plus with undereducated folk, it shows them words, the spelling and usage and grammar or words and sentences, passively, fast. I have my students do it at home with their regular entertainment and their reading and comprehension scores skyrocket. It’s like the brain is both seeing, reading and comprehending.
That’s what I do without regular TV, people always ask——like how did you get through the war without a gun?
TV has become most people’s God. When I’m sitting on those trains, not reading sometimes, I now watch right hands full of small screens—-not even silly games as much—-watching videos—-TV as soon as they have a moment TV watching while walking. It’s got a different name——videos, streaming, etc. but it’s the same—-penis, dick, schlong—-we know what we’re talking about.
One, just as propaganda I can hear, especially as teacher, when a person watches too much TV. They sound like sound bites. They talk too fast. They’re emotions are—-stunted. I think what is happening is being fed so much information, technically more than the human brain can handle at 28 bits per second—-I have a TV show, I often contemplate experimenting with the structure of the content because sometimes I’m editing down to the half second. Yup, I could put something in that your brain would absorb but your eye wouldn’t “see”.
I think about that power and then I think about folk who would just do it…..for billions of dollars.
Two, the distorted information I see of TV when I do see snippets—-it goes too fast, they talk to fast, the speed of commercials is upsetting. But to distortion, the constant reinforcement of hegemony, of racism or misogyny of classism of hyper-consumerism. See when you watch it, you think it’s par for the course—-in faster than you can filter—-which is another reason why I use subtitles, it’s an artificial filter to the brain—-so you simply dump truck it into your mind.
When you don’t watch it, purposefully ignore it and then look at it, it’s like a scream, a structured scream. Maybe because I also have a TV show for 14 years now where I go into a studio and me and others construct this TV show and it broadcasts—-I see the sausage being made from Gertie the pig slaughtered on the farm to Gus the ripe smelling butcher stuffing casing in the back——having never washed his hands——to the rat that fell into the grinder that the Quality Control Team associate was shocked but said nothing about——so TV to me looks like a cacophony, a slow motion mind rape. It’s loud, screaming false, distorted values and does so faster than your biological brain can filter it.
Three, the ability to question it as you watch it or stop it and consider. You watch and essentially even if you disagree with the context, you’re agreeing to the insertion of the content into your mind. It’s like disagreeing to baseball as a game but playing baseball with friends. A book you can put down, highlight, research. A film online you can even pause it, check it out, think about it—-sometimes I look a thing up on Wikipedia—-especially long series to just nutshell it for me and allow my imagination to complete watching Season 7 thru 15. (Who will ever watch 20 seasons of Supernatural? lol)
Four, you’re paying for the dreams of others. I often point out to students that when you watch TV you’re looking at an actress, say Jennifer Aniston for insanity’s point. She’s living out her dream. She likes her work and she’s paid amazingly well for it. She’s now at a point where she has more control and freedom. She’s living the Jennifer Aniston career dream which includes fame and money. And you’re sitting on your couch in a studio, eating Cheetos, watching yet another dullard episode of Friends before you doze off to go to a job you hate. You’re watching someone else live out their dreams——and paying streaming or cable or even electricity rates for the privilege of doing it (being a battery in the Matrix.)
I then point out the huge thing you must always remember—-Jennifer Aniston never sits down to watch your life, no aspect of it. She would call security, drive away, slit her wrists if forced to watch your life. She is so uninterested in everything you do that we couldn’t even get her to try watching your life for more than a few minutes before, based upon even just her pay scale/hourly value alone, she found you tepid and boring, got up from the sofa and walked away. Your life has no value to the thousands of people that are on your appointment schedule of TV/videos. Maybe not Jennifer but I’m sure thousands of others, including TV executive consider you less than a blip, barely human beyond your watching of their product….because like a drug dealer, they know you’ll be back.
I’ve never done drugs.
TV, videos, films are in medium to large doses, pacifiers—-which is why there’s no revolution—-cant get folk off the sofa and the TV programs folk what to think, how to think, not to think too far. And you’re upset at so many reboots? That’s called smashing the product—-smashing a pound of heroin with a pound of aspirin and baking soda to create 3lbs that you sell at heroin prices. A little less potent but throw in a teaspoon of fentanyl and what junkie really knows the difference. Which is why you’re on your umpteenth Superman, hospital drama, cop drama (you wonder how you live in a totalitarian state and watch decades of iterations of Law & Order?), constant mayhem and vicious violence—-how many people have you and your kids seen “simulated” killed on TV? Women? Parents? And you wonder why kids going on killing sprees after decades of this?
It was designed to control people, make a profit and repeat.
I should know, I have a TV show for 14 years. The smart move is to never do the product, but keep smashing and selling. Every dealer knows that.
- Life is quieter, my emotions less frazzled. I don’t know when I’ve been stressed longer than a few minutes.
- I sleep better.
- I think better—-I focus faster, easier.
- I think deeper.
- Sex is better.
- Food tastes better.
- Reality is richer because I’m not trying to supplant it.
- I communicate better.
- I’ve written a hundred books.
- I like people more. I communicate in person and notice mental illness and anxieties faster in people.
- I feel better as a human being and I’m more productive.
- I’m thankfully, not you.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
