Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Today's Post Delayed Due to NCIS & NCIS-LA

I don't watch much television.  But, I have to admit that I do enjoy watching both NCIS and NCIS-LA.  It seems that I am frequently out of town on Tuesday nights when they are on but DVR captures them for when there is opportunity.  Tonight, however, I am watching.

I don't find much on television that I care for.  If on occasion I do watch it is often that I am asked a question about what I supposedly just saw and I can't answer because I haven't really been paying attention.  It's just noise.  Something visually distracting.

It took me a lot of years to realize that what I fed my mind did much to shape my thought and my attitude toward things.  I first realized it when viewing news programs.  I decided at one time to go for 30 days without watching television or reading a newspaper and it was enlightening.  My mood improved and I found that most of what went on in the world really didn't impact me anyway.  Interestingly enough, I picked up enough from various conversations that I knew as much as anyone else about the events any way.

Much of television is mindless entertainment.  Keyword: mindless.  Mind-numbing might be a better description.  I think people often forget to think for themselves because they constantly feed themselves with what others think or say. 

Some of the best advice I ever received was from my Dad in my 8th grade year.  I think I've related this before, but it fits here too.  He always read the newspaper at the breakfast table.  I would get the comics and read them.  One day he started asking me about my opinion on various world events.  I seemed to have only one answer, "I don't know."  He said, "Well, if you don't form your own opinions someone else will form them for you." 

Since that time I have always tried to do my own thinking.  I wish others would too.  I get pretty frustrated with people who mindlessly parrot what others say and never dig into issues themselves.  The current ObamaCare/Government Shutdown issue is a great case in point.  I hear a lot of rhetoric that is mere regurgitation of Political Party pablum fed to the people via various mediums -- particularly social media. 

By-the-way, has anyone other than the lawyers who wrote it actually read the health care bill??

Well, I guess this post is only a little delayed.  It was typed while watching television.  I am sort of paying attention.....

2 comments:

Willy said...

I like your thoughts about the mind.

We must stand guard on our minds. We should carefully control what comes in. If it is allowed to come in then it is there! If it is there then it is hard not to dwell on it.

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Philippians 4:8

Don't let the junk it.

Chris McClure aka Panhandle Poet said...

The very verse that I had in mind Willy.

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