HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Oct. 27, 2004 Shapes twist and move to beautiful music, brilliant in their glistening glory. It's half four and time for He-Man. Once again the Masters of The Universe battle for dominion, each stroke falling in the name of good or ill, each word spoken with true conviction. In an American accent. That's what I lived on...for seventeen years! Age three to age twenty. I glutted myself on show after show, each, in their splendour, more glorious than the last, pouring into my brain with dreadful march. When Bucky O'Hare defeated the Space Toads, I was there. When Mumm-Ra cast looming shadows over the land, I watched in awe. When Charlie Dimmock flashed her nipples...well, I changed the channel. But I always remembered. Memory is an interesting thing. Compare the difference between a hot summer's day, a monotonous voice droning on recanting the tale of Harold's fall at the great battle...and the Battle of Endor, Star Wars Episode VI - Return of The Jedi. Ahh, Han Solo, Princess Leia and those fuzzy yet strangely deadly Ewoks. Do you think when they wake up in the morning they've fallen out of bed, the way of all teddies? Which do you think the teenage mind would have better chance of assimilating? A) Statistics, Algebra, History, Psychology, Chemistry. B) Lightsabers, zooming ships, spectacular explosions and the chance to sit in your bedroom and make 'whoosh' noises with your Millenium Falcon. And try to remove Leia's bra. I know which memories I treasure. And which I would choose. And, to quote the lovely people at the Pepsi Corporation, it's the choice of a new generation. My generation. That's what they call us. The Video Generation. Not that I feel this is a bad thing, however. Television is not just a a platform for new information, it's also the chance for us to give up our own opinion and follow, blindly, into the future. Oh, wait. That's not really that good, is it? A constant barrage of rippling heroes, busty heroines, stark images of violence and sex, sci- fi, drama and action, has created a new breed. Put plainly, we've lost our imagination. But I must qualify this with an addition. This is not the imagination that writes great scripts or gripping novels, but the simple imagination of an everyday, wandering mind. When I was a child, I imagined myself, as I'm sure most kidders do, as a space pilot, a war hero, saviour of all mankind. What is it now? The girl next door wants to be on Big Brother and her sister has applied for the X-Factor while slapping on Max Factor and worshipping actors. She doesn't even know how to use a protractor. I myself still revel in my imagination. I'm sitting in the Triangle in Manchester City Centre, munching happily on a chicken and bacon pannini (not a roll...a pannini, it's an important distinction) when a Demon from the nether depths rises on a pillar of dark energy and stands, rampant, as clouds gather above. I take a running jump onto its back and hang on for dear life as it writhes beneath me. Frantically, I reach into my robe (which was, until recently, a Gap coat...69.99 from your local retailer, kids) and draw my sword (front door keys), which I thrust, with a desperate movement, straight into its rolling eye. The beast collapses, dust settling as I crouch, panting, a few yards away. With one final grunt, it expires and I stand, triumphant, to the cheers of the people. A young mother ushers her child away from the odd bloke with the glazed expression and mayonnaisey bacon on his coat. But it's a small price to pay. Healthy body, healthy mind, they say. It's not true, but they say it anyway. I'm overweight, sluggish and years of exposure to low-grade television radiation have given a Darth Vader-esque pallor to rival that of most computer programmers. But I digress. These flights of fancy are not simple daydreams, but a way to contrast the stark reality we face each day; created by us, lived by us, loathed by us. Your mind is there for a reason and I doubt it's collating your taxes or remembering your PIN. You can argue, of course, that television has bridged gaps of understanding and allowed the spread of information hitherto inaccessible to the 'unwashed masses'. For unwashed, read 'perma- tan'. I don't dispute it. I myself have learned a great many things from television. Th march of time through geological periods, the rise and fall of nations and the bloody history of our race. Oh, and not to let Lawrence Llewellyn- Bowen into your house. But this factor, dear reader, is exactly what I'm driving at. You've got your 'intellectual' programs such as Horizon, Equinox and House Invaders...ahem. and you've got filler. Filler is everything else. The programs that are on while you flick. You get twenty percent of seven different programs over a two hour period, and while Powergen revel in the fact that your money is marching to them through the ever ticking meter, you are sitting on your backside soaking up; what? Education? Inspiration? Enlightenment? NO! You're learning how to use green paint well with striped wallpaper whilst simultaneously baking a pie and digging your garden. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Note excessive length of sigh). Entertainment has stopped being entertainment and become an easy way of passing your life. Ever watchful for that next episode, the new characters, you forget you are a real person and return, every day, to the shimmering blue screen promising glory and riches, peace, joy and love. You look forward to it. You daydream, now, about what's 'on'. Granted, there are those who bike, who walk, who run, who play sports, read books, play music for their own enjoyment. But they're getting fewer amongst the general populace. And fewer. Ad infinitum. Which is why, at age twenty, I stopped watching television altogether. I lost myself in books, in music, in the simple contemplation of the sunrise. And felt alive. Felt the breath in me. Felt I had awoken each day, not simply opened my eyes. Now, I'm not saying that I became some king of existence, alive for the first time in years. But it felt like it. My mind was my own, not constricted to half eight showings or toilet breaks in a movie when the news interrupts. I didn't even have to see Trevor McDonald before I went for a wee. I rediscovered my imagination, my sense of wonder. And the fact that there is natural light. Light not created by TV! Who'd have thought it? Not just the harsh bright stuff that stings your eyes on the way to work where you try for a tan from the fluorescent strip lights and discuss what was on telly last night. Good, wholesome sunshine. Of course, I still went to the pub and ate too much and talked blatherskite at every opportunity. But it was MY blatherskite. My own words, not movie quotes, not 'did you watch such and such?'. I reserved no bitterness for Gardener's World nor feared the opening strains of Emmerdale. I simply let go. It's that easy. I let go. And realised the worst part. Most people my age have no sense of wonder for the same reason. The sunrise I mentioned? It's just the sky. JUST THE SKY? It's the infinite, the incomprehensible, the stuff of the universe! And it's blue! What convenience, that it provides beautiful views, oxygen, warmth, protection from cosmic forces AND you can coordinate your bag to it! A world of infinite beauty, diversity and wonder and what do you do? Buy Doritos Dippas and glue open your eyes to catch the end of 'Dangerous Woman II - The Revenge'. Pap. Then there's the Internet. But that's a whole can of worms to be ranted about another time. Even as I write, my computer tells me that Internet spelt with a small 'i' is a mistake. Hold back rage...resist temptation to smash screen... Then, after my abstinence from the world of TV, I met a wonderful young woman. Vibrant, caring, gentle, beautiful. Then she moved in with me. Bugger. Not the moving in part, no that was an amazing feeling. The part where, after a month, she told me she couldn't live without her soaps. And, of course, with soaps, comes the rest. Oh, cruel fate. After almost three years I was reinstated as a TV licence owner. And nothing had changed. I still, as I attempted to lose myself in a novel, heard background advice on DIY, fights in the Big Brother house and while I tried my best to ignore, I could not stop the inexorable draw of the demon contraption. The book fell, unnoticed, into my lap, my head turned, eyes, basilisk like, never blinking in the harsh light. The foul siren had had once again sapped my will. Friends is on tonight. ------------ About the author D. Alexander Tindale: I'm 23 and live in Manchester, England. In between banging my head repeatedly on my computer table and slurping endless cups of coffee, I write. I have one complete novel, a detective fiction entitled 'When The Bough Breaks', am currently working on a novel charting the nascent minds of spirits just passed into the next world. I have also written a series of essays entitled 'Futile Rage'. Email: monkeycutlet@mail2beast.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
