Episode XVIII: A Modest Proposal

Upon moving into my condo, it struck me for the first time that I have never personally owned my own TV. In fact, the living room felt a little bit naked without one sitting there. So I told myself that as soon as I started missing television, I would go out and buy one. Well guess what? Three months later… and I still don’t miss it a lick. In fact, I find I have more fun now without it.

By way of illustration, here is an overly-exaggerated comparison of an evening at the Jayhawker Towers (which had a TV) and an evening at the condo (which doesn’t):

On a stereotypical evening in at the Jayhawker Towers, I would get back from class and Flynn would be watching Law & Order. I would catch the tail end of it, then watch about half of the following episode before remembering what a depressing waste of time Law & Order really is. I would then go off to my room to get a bit of homework done. Soon I would be distracted by the sound of Flynn watching some random college sport, and I would get sucked into the game; before I knew it, I would have watched two hours-worth of a sport I didn't like, played by two teams I had never even heard of. Later Zack would come in while I was eating dinner and watch some movie, which of course I would have to watch with him. Finally, Zack or Flynn would watch some late-night comedy show on Comedy Central (or even worse, on BET). Only then would I be so turned off by the show that I would go to bed.

On the other hand, a stereotypical evening in at my new TV-free condo would probably go more like this: I would cue up some music- nothing too loud- and cook some dinner (that's right, I said I would cook some dinner). After finishing up the meal I would read the newspaper and a chapter or two of a book, play some guitar (or maybe even violin), do some edifying studying, and maybe have time for some yoga stretches before bed. I can tell you that almost without exception, this kind of itinerary is both more enjoyable and more rewarding than that of the former.

One caveat is that I occasionally use my laptop to play DVDs. However, this brings up another, more quantifiable difference in the quality of movie choice. It has been a lifelong goal of mine to watch every movie that has ever won a Best Picture Academy Award, and I can tell you that I am 41% of the way there. While I watched a ton of movies at the Towers, I only managed to watch one Best Picture the entire school year. Since moving into the condo, however, in a mere three months I have watched seven.

I guess the point is, I feel like my quality of life has quite improved since television disappeared from my abode. So am I encouraging you to immediately take your TV up to the second floor of your house and throw it out the window? Certainly not! But I am not discouraging that either.