I love how people always think that it's so much better to be a person who reads books all the time, as opposed to a person who spends their time watching movies. Readers are viewed as ubber intelligent and deep thinkers. These are people who use their minds as opposed to being fed entertianment through a bube tube. They have deep thoughts and educated views. Yeah right! People! We're usually reading Fiction!! Our minds are being swayed to the bias of the authors, and it's so subtle that we don't even know it's happening!
Let's be totally honest, when I get to reading a good book (usually fiction) nothing else matters to me. It will take at least one evening, usually more, to read the whole book and nothing else will get done. My animals are downright relieved that I remember to feed them on these occasions. I'm pretty sure most of my high school teachers would be shocked to know how often I was holding a book under my desk as I pretended to follow along with their lecture. The only way I got through college was to leave my books in OK while I went to school in IL.
Books are just as consuming and adictive as movies, but they last 10 times longer. While your average movie is over in 2 hours with the heroin or hero living happily ever after (or everyone is dead and gone - depending on you entertainment preferences), after 2 hours of a book, you've just gotten aquanted with the main characters and the basic setting. The movie goer has now moved on to doing the laundry and vacuuming the house, while the reader has moved onto the couch for more comfort. Now, who's got the healthy lifestyle?
And as for this ubber intelligent rumor, let's take a look at a prime example. Henry McCarty, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. He was a huge reader all through his youth. That's how he spent his free time. Historians believe he was a very smart individual with a ton of potential. Here's my thought: If he was really that smart, he would have made it past the age of 21. The idiot did everything he could to get into trouble and then never had the sense enough to think "Wow, I only stole some laundry and I'm only a teenager, maybe they won't string me up for this offense." So, he breaks out of jail and his life is just one big spiral of bad decisions. Reading does not create intelligence.
So, should you put down the books and just watch movies? No. Just be careful who we put on a pedestal and why.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Stupidity of Buying Journals
Okay, so the entire human population is looking for a way to express themselves as individuals. We have our own personalities and our own ideas and we need other people to realize how special we are. There needs to be some record left for generations to come that we had a deep thought while sitting by ourselves one evening. Enter - the Journal. Every whatnot store has a ton of them. They come in all different sizes and colors. You can get them with a picture of your favorite movie characters or wresting heroes. They can look professional, Bohemian, or - my favorite - deep. Yes, Deep. I love it when they look as though they already have knowledge seeping from the binding.
So we purchase our Journal, take it home and start to write. However, before we can get to the deep thoughts, we must first spend half an hour writing a special note to the future generation that will come across this Journal and be drawn to its seeping intellectual stimulus. The note says something along the lines of "I'm going to document my time as a coach," or "I am just expanding on all the uniquely random ideas that come into my head (because of course, no one else has ever thought of them)." Then you have to write three pages on your place in life, including age, career and family. The future generations need this!!
Alas, your time has run out. Your writing hand, accustomed to doing no more that signing a random document in this age of computers, is beginning to cramp. Your bedside clock is warning you that it will set off an obnoxious buzz in five short hours, at which time, you will have no choice but to get up and head to your not-so-deep everyday life. No worries - you intend to write again tomorrow evening. You'll get an earlier start so you won't feel pressure to turn off the light and sleep.
Day two. YEAH!! This evening you are going to write deep thoughts. You can tell they are just waiting to burst out. Unfortunately, dinner with the family ran late. Then everyone wanted to play the new Scene-It board game and you hit the mattress and closed your eyes. BUT WAIT!!! You can't neglect your journal so quickly. An entry of "Dinner with fam was fun. Have to run errand tomorrow," will have to suffice.
In the fine tradition of errands, you are run out of energy on day three and completely forget the journal.
Day seven. "Oh yeah...there's a Journal lying beside the bed. I'll write in it." How you feel you must tell the future generations more about the family dinner and errands and why you've neglected your journal for the past week. Once again, you've run out of steam and the deep thoughts are put on hold.
Three months down the road, you half-heartedly pick up your Journal again. You get part-way through the update, lose interest and turn on your favorite Mel Gibson flick.
Three more months sweep by. You don't know where the time went, but in a fury of self-improvement energy, you start spring-cleaning. You take the four-foot high pile of books from beside your bed and put them back in your library (I'm referring to the small four-shelf unit in the family room). When you come across the journal, you sigh in remorse and haul it to your library as well. The potentially - could have been - still may one day be - intellectually filled journal is placed between your high school journal analyzing the works of William Shakespeare and the extra flowery journal given to you by Aunt May, in which you made a few feeble attempts at bad poetry.
So ends the saga of yet another Journal. Don't worry, you will repeat this again when you start a new hobby, take an exotic vacation or watch Finding Forester.
So we purchase our Journal, take it home and start to write. However, before we can get to the deep thoughts, we must first spend half an hour writing a special note to the future generation that will come across this Journal and be drawn to its seeping intellectual stimulus. The note says something along the lines of "I'm going to document my time as a coach," or "I am just expanding on all the uniquely random ideas that come into my head (because of course, no one else has ever thought of them)." Then you have to write three pages on your place in life, including age, career and family. The future generations need this!!
Alas, your time has run out. Your writing hand, accustomed to doing no more that signing a random document in this age of computers, is beginning to cramp. Your bedside clock is warning you that it will set off an obnoxious buzz in five short hours, at which time, you will have no choice but to get up and head to your not-so-deep everyday life. No worries - you intend to write again tomorrow evening. You'll get an earlier start so you won't feel pressure to turn off the light and sleep.
Day two. YEAH!! This evening you are going to write deep thoughts. You can tell they are just waiting to burst out. Unfortunately, dinner with the family ran late. Then everyone wanted to play the new Scene-It board game and you hit the mattress and closed your eyes. BUT WAIT!!! You can't neglect your journal so quickly. An entry of "Dinner with fam was fun. Have to run errand tomorrow," will have to suffice.
In the fine tradition of errands, you are run out of energy on day three and completely forget the journal.
Day seven. "Oh yeah...there's a Journal lying beside the bed. I'll write in it." How you feel you must tell the future generations more about the family dinner and errands and why you've neglected your journal for the past week. Once again, you've run out of steam and the deep thoughts are put on hold.
Three months down the road, you half-heartedly pick up your Journal again. You get part-way through the update, lose interest and turn on your favorite Mel Gibson flick.
Three more months sweep by. You don't know where the time went, but in a fury of self-improvement energy, you start spring-cleaning. You take the four-foot high pile of books from beside your bed and put them back in your library (I'm referring to the small four-shelf unit in the family room). When you come across the journal, you sigh in remorse and haul it to your library as well. The potentially - could have been - still may one day be - intellectually filled journal is placed between your high school journal analyzing the works of William Shakespeare and the extra flowery journal given to you by Aunt May, in which you made a few feeble attempts at bad poetry.
So ends the saga of yet another Journal. Don't worry, you will repeat this again when you start a new hobby, take an exotic vacation or watch Finding Forester.
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