Finding Resonance

       By now, I'm not missing TV, really. It's been nearly nine months, and I've had zero TV, except for a portion of some major events: some winter Olympics, part of the Oscars, the decisive NBA match back when, the first episode of House of Cards (on Netflix), and a couple of episodes of Food Network's Chopped, just because I absolutely love this show's creative challenge. I do very, very little cooking, but whenever I watch this show, I get inspired to chop more garlic, or ginger, or both, add more cream, do something interesting with the onions.
       But by and large, I'm sticking to my exercise, and I'm finding it isn't that hard.
       I find that I spend more time on the Internet, which can become an equally addictive waste of time if I don't pay attention. With the Internet, though, I feel I have more control and am more likely to hit on instructive entertainment. For one, I remain fascinated with the Ted website, where I can watch and listen to some of the most intelligent presentations, from speakers throughout the world. How cool is that?
      I also discovered I can watch and listen, live, to any author presenting at my local bookstore (Books & Books in Coral Gables, FL, www.booksandbooks.com). Earlier this evening, I caught the question-and-answer session with Ediberto Román, lawyer and author of Those Damned Immigrants: America's Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration (Citizenship and Migration in the Americas).  Román, I thought, was a little bit combative when answering one of the questions. But for sure, he was unscripted.
      Separately, I ran accross one more message resonating with my TV-less life.  The message came through work, in an unintended way. My boss sent me a link to a page discussing a topic she'd like to see in the corporate magazine. I explored the site, www.newdream.org, and found this message:
      "We work too much, we consume too much, we don’t have enough time for friends and family, and we’re constantly being bombarded with marketers' manipulative messages. It’s time to help Americans live lives beyond consumerism. It’s time to build a society that has transcended an economy based on artificially stimulated consumption and unsustainable growth and to develop instead an economy and culture that are centered on maximizing well-being."
     

      I haven't fully processed the fact that it was my boss who pointed me to this link, which is somewhat incongruous with the commercial real estate activity of the company, an activity that thrives on consumerism. But for now, that's a separate story.
     What is relevant to my exercise is that consumerism is related to TV-watching, of course: "Americans spend more than four hours a day watching television and are exposed to 52,500 TV ads a year—that’s 15.5 days of advertising annually!"
      Okay, I probably was watching half  that much, which is to say two hours. Two favorite sitcoms (it isn't hard to come accross them on any given night) and a favorite one-hour show or news program, and you've got two hours. But if  I found three favorite sitcoms playing in a row, or a re-runs fest, then I could run into three hours. Then figure in the ads that accompany those - at least 30 per hour - and we're still talking a lot of TV ads. 
       To be sure, there are a couple of ways I can think of to avoid watching ads, if you don't mind watching programs after their original scheduled time. Even so, it takes effort and planning to record your programs, or watch through Netflix. So, more likely than not, we're all watching a lot of ads, and that's the price we pay for entertainment or information, in addition to our cable subscription. (Wasn't cable supposed to be ad-free?)
     Then I found a link to this: http://www.screenfree.org/ From May 5-11, this international coalition organizes and sponsors a movement to turn off all screens, except when necessary for school or work. The idea is to organize your daily activities for a week so they don't include the use of any screens.
      Hmm...I might be looking at an interesting, and potentially very rewarding challenge. Seven days, five of them with school and work, so we're talking basically five evenings, and two weekend days. Seems very, very doable. Can I get my 14-year-old on board, she who is thinking she might like to study marketing?
      No Internet, no iPad for my daughter, for one whole week. Can I take it up that one more notch? Let's see: mealtime conversation, maybe a swim, maybe playing some classical music (I can hear her, "Mom! What's that?!), maybe teach her how to sew a hem, go to the bookstore, come up with knock-knock jokes, or invent a new ice cream flavor. 
      Somewhere, somehow, between insanity and absurdity, this seems like a good idea. Mark my calendar.