Zombies

I must say that I rather enjoyed " Television: The Plug-In Drug." I was completely engaged the entire time and had no problem following along like I did in some of the other essays, though the reason may be my own paranoia of the television. I have noticed in the past that my family is the exact image of the one Winn portrays, glued and tuned out on a daily basis. Ive made several comments and started several arguments over the way T.V seems to run our lives. My mom tunes out so much she will literally ignore me if one of her "soaps" are on. My dad goes straight to bed at 6:30pm when he gets home from work, and besides the late night snack, spends all night watching T.V away from the rest of us. Except when Idol is on, then he will come downstairs, make some comment about the show, and instead of watching it with us, continue up again to his room to make another appearance 15 minutes later to say something else. Now, I'm not saying I'm any better, though I may not be away from the rest of the family, I'm still downstairs watching T.V. If I'm honest with myself the only reason I'm doing anything with my family is because I don't have T.V in my room and anytime I want to watch a movie the T.V in my parents room goes out for some crazy, unexplainable reason, and we wouldn't want my dad to be without T.V for an hour and half now would we? Its very sad. We eat in front of the T.V, we fall asleep in front of the T.V, we ignore each other in front of the T.V, we pretty much do everything in front of the T.V and it took this essay to really get me started on my soap box. The more and more I think about it, the more and more angry I am that Ive become another statistic. My fiancee is the only one I think has any sense and the poor guy is stuck with me. To move beyond the realm of the T.V its not the only culprit that enables families to ignore each other. Cellphones, Internet, video games, these are all weapons against the family household. My fiancee, Brent, is constantly complaining about me being on my cell phone. He says it makes him feel like I don't want to engage with him and even with that said, I still cant help myself. People these days are talking more and more about our escapist society. They talk about how we use movies and games to escape from reality, from the war, from the economic strain. Apparently these devices can give us more comfort and reassurance than our families can. I cant even remember the last thing me and my family did together, aside from just me and Brent, in honesty I cant even remember the last time I went and did something outside. I used to run the hills in my hometown in Ohio. I would pick berries, go fishing, and watch the stars come out until I was dragged into the house. I remember having a teenage summer going to concerts, walking on the railroad tracks, going to antique malls, and getting into various troubles. Now all I do is sit at home, watch Dr. Phil and ignore the wold around me. I'm not completely trashing my family. When it comes to being there for each other and getting the necessities done we are perfectly functional, but we do rely too much on the T.V to help us get along. I think tonight I am going to try something different. I might take a walk with Brent, or be the one to cook dinner. Either way I'm going to step away from the T.V and the cellphone tonight and see how that feels. I might find I actually like the world around me if I step back long enough to see it.