Reasons

Reasons - wasn't that the name of a Fleetwood Mac Album? No, Rumors . . . whatever. Great album, great BAND!!! Moving on to reasons.

I am having a bit of trouble concentrating when Blondie is playing in the background and my mind is all over the place after that piece of birthday cake I just ate. Yes, sugar high and CALL ME being screeched in the background is enough to even turn a Buddhist a little edgy. Couple that with the detox I am currently going through with my non TV or movie viewing and you have full blown ADD that won't quit.

Addictions are a terrible thing. Ask any reformed drug addict, alcoholic, over eater, even people pleaser, and they will tell you that living your life for your next hit, fix, piece of cake, or approving nod is enough to make a person crazy. Sometimes you don't know when you are in the middle of it that there is anything even really wrong at all - it all seems so normal. Before you reformed people I just mentioned come after me saying that I don't know what I'm talking about I have to say this. I have never been addicted to drugs, but I have felt the pull of alcohol my fair share of times and I have also watched my grandfather fight it every day of my life. I have eaten my way through cartons of ice cream, cake, and bagel chips only to wipe my mouth and ask "Where did you hide the string cheese?" I have spent my entire life looking for the approval of others to the point where I didn't, and sometimes still don't, know who I really am or who I would have been if I allowed myself to grow.

Television and movies are not any of those things I listed above. They are not dangerous to your system, and heaven only knows that I "love me some movies!" I love me some movies so much that I will watch them over and over and over again. I love them so much that there are probably 10 movies I could quote from start to finish . . . and that is probably underestimating. I don't think there is anything wrong with movies or with the entertainment industry. This is not some boycott because I want to make a point about Hollywood and that "trash they put on the screen." This is not a religious jaunt I am taking because I think that movies are "from the devil." The simple reason is, I'm just doing it.

I'm doing it because I have watched so many movies and seen so much stuff that things have kind of lost their edge. I think that is the case with many people - or why would Iron Man, or The Dark Knight have to be "more action packed" than anything you have ever seen before. Movies have more blowing up, more sex, more language, more action, more everything - just so it will be edgier and more people will go see it and more people will talk about it. I love a lot of things blowing up, I love action, I love all the language, I love every movie that has a twist that you never saw coming, I love it all (especially the sex) - but in that love of it all I just find that I have grown bored with it. Like it is all TOO BIG and I need to step back and get back to some basics in my own life.

I'm doing it because I don't know where to draw the line anymore. Was the line after Kiddo killed 250 ninjas in that fight scene or where she killed 300? Was the line when I saw a comedy about cannibalism and laughed hysterically when they delivered this line: "It's really hard for me to make friends."? Was the line when I sat and watched 6 movies in a row? I'm not saying that I was wrong to watch those movies, or that you are wrong for watching those movies, but what am I really putting into my brain? It has become something that I have a need for. Something shocking, something ironic, something to puzzle over, something to talk about. It has become more than a casual love of movies. Some of you will argue the history of movies as a reason for why others were made. Don't pull that card with me. I have written papers on movies, movie history, movie genres, movie irony, movie copiers, and movie geniuses. 15 pages on Moulin Rouge alone, don't think I couldn't do that for any other movie.

I'm doing it because I can't go a day without watching little people perform for me on a screen. I can't eat dinner without having the TV on. I can't let the latest and greatest movie come out without having a heart attack when I can't see it on opening weekend. I can't sleep until I have watched the DVR of that nights Heroes (or whatever show I HAVE TO WATCH THIS WEEK OR I WILL DIE) I missed because I was gone. I have even gone to the extent of watching a TV show at work because I had missed it the night before and I heard it was a "must see". What the heck, watched it at WORK?

I'm doing it because I'm not really all that excited about anything anymore. I hate my life because my problems don't work themselves out after 30 minutes to an hour, and I can't leave my life in cliff hanger mode for a week to pick up the problem 7 days later. Simple things like swinging, going for a drive (even if it costs $100), going for a walk, or playing with my dog are not ACTION packed.

I'm doing it because I'm starting to relate to people I see in the movies, and talking about them like they are my friends, or that life would be so fun to be them. Yeah it would be fun if I wanted someone directing my every word and action. "And cut! OK, let's try that one again, but this time you don't care where I was and you are happy to see me. And lets do this take topless." (Obscure comedian reference there, leave it if you don't know)

I'm doing it because there are things that I want to do and things I want to learn to do, but I never have the time. Oh I have the time, I just spend it sitting on my butt. The guitar looks fun.

I'm doing this because last month I went camping. Once there I was cut off from cell phone service, no one was listening to music, and the whole place was just quiet. People were talking to one another. People were making up stories around the campfire. People were just enjoying being. Just being. Holy CRAP that was nice, just being. No distractions, just being. Have I said it was nice to just be? A couple of weeks later I went out to watch a Boy Scout tradition that I had never seen before. As I looked around I realized that there is beauty and joy in just being out in the woods. In being part of something bigger than yourself. I mean I knew that already. I have spent my fair share of time in the woods. But being there again reminded me of it. Reminded me how great it was to be apart of something like that. Reminded me how great it was to just live and not be distracted.

I don't think any one of those reasons is a reason to give up watching. I don't think any one of those reasons is right or wrong. I don't think you are wrong for watching for any one of those reasons. I don't think I am wrong for watching for any one of those reasons. But I have come to a point where all of those reasons put together are enough to make me stop and reflect and see that maybe I need to get some of my priorities straightened out. The last year has been extremely hard for me. I spent a lot of time covering that up by zoning out and watching other situations so that I didn't have to think about my own. Well more changes and crap are coming my way, and I don't want to distract from it - I want to face it. Face it in the best mind set I can, in a clear mindset.

I don't think that this is going to be easy. I'm only one week into it and I am itching to watch just 15 minutes of ANYTHING!!! There are a lot of movies I have been looking forward to for a long time, and they are still slated to come out in 2008 and the beginning of 2009. I guess I will just wait a little longer. There are the Olympics starting soon, the presidential debates (yes I am that much of a nerd), and other movies that I don't even know about yet that I'm sure I will want to see. I don't know what made me decide a year time frame, maybe because I could hold my breath for a month so that didn't seem like a big deal - but a year. A year is commitment, I hate commitment.

Well The Best Of Blondie is over, and the good old iTunes has moved onto another album so maybe it is time to wrap this up. You may agree, you may disagree - I welcome all comments. There are obviously those who think I can't do it (me included), but I know some of you think I can. I gave my reasons not out of a need to be "right" but more as a way to answer the masses that have said, WHAT! WHY?