Finding Oneself

I love watching TV shows. From Chuck to Criminal Minds, from Seinfeld to How I Met You Mother or from Touch to Grey’s Anatomy, I watch everything. Without watching Coupling and The Wonder Years, I never switch off the TV.

It’s fun to see the awkward situations people get themselves into in sitcoms. It is interesting to see unusual cases being solved in those crime shows. And thriller shows just make everyday boring life slightly appealing.

But do these shows really entertain us? Or do they make us realize everything that we can’t do in our normal lives and help us live our dreams through them? Is watching these shows making us miss out on the special moments we could have experienced in our lives?

I recently got my TV connection. Before that, the last time I had watched programs on my own TV was almost four years ago. Yes, I didn’t have a TV connection for almost four years. My dad had had it disconnected so that I could study with one less distraction.

Of course I hated him for doing that. I mean, it’s a supply of entertainment, a source of time-pass, a means to do mindless activity after hours of mumbo-jumbo studying. All my friends would discuss the latest episode of Castle, while I didn’t know what the heck they were talking about (no, I didn’t watch it online because I couldn’t – I had a connection that had a speed of 112.5 KBPS).

I used to play the piano in class four, but I got bored of it by class five so I discontinued playing. But during these years of no TV, I played the piano to relax. I also started reading books, too. And, most importantly, I learnt to play the guitar on my own (I hate taking music lessons. It doesn’t make sense to go to learn music twice a week – you don’t learn anything worthwhile in an hour packed away among heaps of others in the class).

Today, when I have college admission interviews, I feel like I have more to present to the Board than what I would have if I watched TV all those years. Those four years made me discover so much about me that I feel more confident as a person and when I talk to people, I think I make a good speaker. In fact, if I wouldn’t have had all that time, I wouldn’t have gotten interested in writing either!

These days, I watch TV because only creativity inspires creativity. It freshens me up and changes my mood from the study (read: war) zone it is in to the person who composes music and loves writing. I’m not saying that my dad was right in disconnecting the TV because there surely are more ways to discover the real person that we are. But, I think I don’t have any regrets or anger because I’m happy to have found myself.