I was thinking about tv today. Why is it so popular? It seems to me that tv fills a perceived need without much effort. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Here's what I mean.

Some of the tv shows that I enjoy are the Pretender, Monk, the Star Trek series, and MacGyver. Of course there are others, but what do these shows have in common (besides the fact that most of them aren't actually on tv anymore)? They all involve intelligent people having adventures and getting out of problems using creative methods. So in watching these shows they inspire me to have adventures and help out the innocents.

Where tv goes wrong, or rather where the tv viewers go wrong, is when they replace real life with fictional life. If watching a half hour show on high desert hiking motivates me to pull out the camping equipment and head out for the weekend, great! But if I watch the travel show and say, "that was sure beautiful country" and feel like I've really experienced it, then I'm missing out. Of course there are some things that I can experience through tv that I will never find in real life, but its not the particular locations and events that I'm missing out on so much as going somewhere and really experiencing it.


Some experiences would be rather miserable in real life (like getting trapped on an island or in the middle of a desert) so I don't mind pseudo-experiencing it through tv rather than really experiencing it myself. I'd really rather not do that. So maybe tv can be good prep for real life and and brief glimpse into some things we'd really rather not fully experience.

In Other News...
We had our graduation last Friday and it was interesting because I was part of the faculty this time. I got to walk in with the other professors (all twice my age) and clap for the students (also mostly older than me) as they walked by. I really enjoyed the regalia, probably more than when I was wearing them as a graduate.