Media

I spent a lot of today watching TV. It's something I do a lot when I'm home; my family likes to watch TV, and my best friend here loves to watch stuff with me. I'm not sure why it feels different, doing it with other people. I watch plenty of TV when I'm at college, too. But here, it seems as if every time I watch something, I really enjoy it, but right after I get a really empty feeling inside, like I've done something wrong, or maybe was expecting to get something out of watching whatever-it-was that I didn't end up getting out of it. That happened to me today. And I started thinking about when this happens to me. Well, firstly when I let my TV-watching get out of control and don't do it to honor God. Yep, definitely going on today. Also when I watch expecting to get something more than entertainment, or perhaps a bit of thought or reflection, out of it. Something like fulfillment. Yeah, maybe it sounds silly. But I think it's something I used to do a lot when I wasn't a Christian. And in many ways I remember it being rather fulfilling, at least in the short term (am I just remembering things better than they were?)--maybe because my standards were much lower?

The other problem with watching so much TV is that it gets me thinking about my stories. The world that they present in TV--in most, if not all, media, actually--is a world that's almost perfect except for one or two little problems, which can be solved relatively easily by a self-dependent character in the amount of time required for the book/show/movie/whatever to be done exactly when it needs to be done. In many ways, such a world-view appeals to me; hence, I think, my tendency to create my own such worlds, inside my head and then on paper. It's so tempting--what a simple, perfect world, where characters really can solve their own problems without God!!

Logically, such a world view no longer appeals to me, at all. Unfortunately, the habit of thinking about the characters I created for such worlds is not so easily broken. The idea/temptation to think about them has been popping up a lot this past week. It's been difficult. Also a bit frustrating--I thought I'd solved this problem! And maybe that idea is the problem. I've never had the strength myself to deal with this problem, or any of my other problems. Thinking that I'm avoiding thinking about my stories myself means that I'm thinking of myself as in charge and self-dependent (independent?), when I'm actually not. I just pray for the strength and wisdom to resist this new onslaught of temptation through God's wisdom and guidance.