Thousands of people in your living room everyday - that’s a lot of teachers. Allowing cable to be your family’s guide, teacher and instructor.

By Walter Steinwald. (Originally written June 9, 2015.)

Image by Walter Steinwald.

Guiding your child through life requires winding through or around some certain conversations from certain influences. Within the small circuit of friendly discussions, I find at times some conversations are not “my” child appropriate. Not to mean the topics are XXX neon sign or blood drenched murder implement level only for my child’s maturity, comprehension level or social understanding they are not constructive. When this comes about I struggle to remove my child or reroute the conversation. This is a basic parental action, I think. And it’s a description of a single conversation at a particular time with a single person. Enter cable. Guiding, winding, ignoring influences that do not build your child is by and large futile. Now we have three to five commercials separating our random programs into fifteen to twenty sections. This builds quite a crowd of indiscriminate people having indiscriminate conversations in your living room, a crowd that awaits parental approval to stay or go.
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Why do we invite so many strangers into our lives? Often, we say that it is only way to stay informed about our culture and the global goings on. Also, so many cable shows are educational and the whole family sitting around learning can’t be all bad. Lastly, we love to be entertained. The whole cable industry is built on these pilings, raising it up to a near mythical need.

It seems at times that the daily news is scripted into four categories: global natural catastrophe, global political catastrophe, world leaders or celebrities acting immoral and the bizarre. Day to day offers slight changes for each category, so that a weekly glance is sufficient to stay abreast. But if we are such a person that carries responsibilities so that we are forced to know moment-to-moment news, is it worth watching all the commercials in between? For most of us, not under global responsibilities, who don’t have any ability to practically change the situation, this constant memorial of our ineptitude will probably lead to depression. Seeing constant carnage with no ability to help can’t lead to shiny happy people. Ought we to pace ourselves in this sphere?

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Guiding your child through life requires winding through or around some certain conversations from certain influences. Within the small circuit of friendly discussions, I find at times some conversations are not “my” child appropriate. Not to mean the topics are XXX neon sign or blood drenched murder implement level only for my child’s maturity, comprehension level or social understanding they are not constructive. When this comes about I struggle to remove my child or reroute the conversation. This is a basic parental action, I think. And it’s a description of a single conversation at a particular time with a single person. Enter cable. Guiding, winding, ignoring influences that do not build your child is by and large futile. Now we have three to five commercials separating our random programs into fifteen to twenty sections. This builds quite a crowd of indiscriminate people having indiscriminate conversations in your living room, a crowd that awaits parental approval to stay or go.

Why do we invite so many strangers into our lives? Often, we say that it is only way to stay informed about our culture and the global goings on. Also, so many cable shows are educational and the whole family sitting around learning can’t be all bad. Lastly, we love to be entertained. The whole cable industry is built on these pilings, raising it up to a near mythical need.

It seems at times that the daily news is scripted into four categories: global natural catastrophe, global political catastrophe, world leaders or celebrities acting immoral and the bizarre. Day to day offers slight changes for each category, so that a weekly glance is sufficient to stay abreast. But if we are such a person that carries responsibilities so that we are forced to know moment-to-moment news, is it worth watching all the commercials in between? For most of us, not under global responsibilities, who don’t have any ability to practically change the situation, this constant memorial of our ineptitude will probably lead to depression. Seeing constant carnage with no ability to help can’t lead to shiny happy people. Ought we to pace ourselves in this sphere?

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The six-month journey: What would you, your children, your spouse, your home be like without cable? Instead of listening to the news first thing in the morning, you could sit watching the yard, thinking of…whatever you wanted. In the evening instead of the kitchen being lonely, there could be discussion or games or help with the food. But what would happen to your mind, if there weren’t indiscriminate people telling you about random things all the time? What would you start thinking about? How do we know what we are if we are told what we ought to be all the time? The first couple of weeks will be difficult; changing habits is disorienting. After that it will get exciting and then dull and then commonplace. Once it becomes common you will stop thinking about what your missing and start think about important things.

I have known addicts of different sorts and the great pain is to see them give up so much in order to satisfy that urge. What they miss has no comparison to what they want. What lengths they will go through, what humiliations they suffer, what potential they ignore so they can have that thing is astounding. It is as if they have taped binoculars on their face, seeing only a small blurred piece of that wonderful world passing by. And I can’t help but apply this to the dedicated cable user.