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.....