Entertaining our lives away
Autor: mel | Publicado: 2016-06-11T12:53:00-07:00


In spite of having multiple hobbies and interests, it has been with some disappointment and a nagging sense of guilt that I have watched my time spent drawing, painting or writing dwindle over the past few months. Even though I wouldn't consider my hours to be unreasonable in any way, the fact is once I am done with experiments, reviewing scientific literature and writing my thesis or papers, I do not really feel like exercising the intellectual effort of engaging in any of my other hobbies. All I want to do is sit down, eat and let my mind rest with an easy to read fiction book, a movie or an episode of a series.&nbsp;

However, observing this trend I began to wonder: how much of my time and, ultimately, my life is being poured down the drain into fictional worlds that have never existed? Into worlds of happy endings, of magic, dragons knights in shining armour? Worlds in which science works like magic, and in which heroes and villains are caricatures, as easily told apart as black and white? Stories in which the good guy gets the girl and they live happily ever after (whatever that is supposed to mean)?

If, for instance, I were to consider two hours a day destined to entertainment (either one movie, two episodes of a series or a few chapters of a book), that would sum up to 14 hours a week, 730 hours a year - which is shockingly one month per year or an average of approximately 6 years of one's life (given a life of approximately 70 years) spent away from the real world.&nbsp;

The fact is our generation consumes an unprecedented amount of entertainment, and much of identity is based on the types of movies, books and music you like. There has been a decline in people with particular intellectual interests, and very often bonding and friendship are based solely on similar entertainment choices. Suddenly, financially we are not capable of funding the extent of entertainment, and thus illegal downloads have increased and people 'own' more than their computers are capable of storing. We have come to the circumstance in which our need for entertainment has reached an extent where it is now socially acceptable (and often expected) that you will literally steal something to be able to satisfy your need for it.&nbsp;

One of the many issues arising from this is that it is profoundly changing the way we see and interact with the world.&nbsp;

For instance, recently a study was published on the way that romance novels and movies are as harmful to relationships as pornography; each of them profit from creating an artificially constructed ideal which satisfies the two stereotypical forms of ideal relationships of each gender. From spending extensive amount of time in these artificial worlds, we create false expectations as to what relationships are like, and thus are perpetually unsatisfied. We are frustrated believing that perhaps another person might fulfil our emotional or sexual desires in the way portrayed in a particular book or movie. Now only that, also most movies &nbsp;do have a romantic component: the good guy wins the girl, kisses (or has sex with) the girl and the credits start rolling. And suddenly people find themselves in an actual relationships in which they have to figure out what happens after the first kiss or what "happily ever after" actually involves.&nbsp;

However, believing that the negative consequences of excess entertainment are limited to romantic relationships is at best naïve. The flooding of our minds of a month per year of action, &nbsp;emotion, magic, powers and supernatural abilities suddenly makes the real world seem impossibly dull and boring. Suddenly we find that often we will "pursue our dreams" and that won't work out. We may try our best, but we still do not achieve fame and success. Our beauty standards of what we should look like are completely unrealistic (sorry ladies, I don't think you have time to retouch make up in a zombie apocalypse and sorry lads, there is no science to make your muscles grow overnight like Captain America). Disregarding rules will have negative consequences, unlike what Harry Potter says. Relationships are not made of first kisses and happily ever afters - they are made of imperfect people working hard to take care of each other (and that probably will involve conflict).&nbsp;

We then look at our lives - hours of studying, hours doing work we don't really know the point of, hours cooking and housekeeping, our relationships, financial difficulties - and we can't help but be sorely disappointed and frustrated. Our wins do not have crowds cheering us forward, and our accomplishments do not have epic music.&nbsp;

This disappointment drains us emotionally, and our lives seem to not have meaning - and so we ease our minds by flooding them with yet more of the temporary joy and meaning of mindless entertainment. We need to feel some spark of joy, power or hope and thus we look to fiction as we often cannot find it in the world.&nbsp;

I do not think that eliminating entertainment entirely is a solution. Storytelling has always had a place in society - often it would be a form of communicating inheritance, origin and education. Fiction is a form of art which may help bring to light relevant matter of society or morality, for example. It is one way of building empathy and understanding points of view other than your own by living in the situation of other characters.&nbsp;

However, the concern I have had in observing is the increasing importance and dependence we have on it, and how much of ourselves is defined by activities often destined only to 'switch off' our brains. It seems to be a numbing of the mind hypnotising us into a trance, a fiction that pulls us out of the real world and keeps us trapped in an addiction artificial emotions - not very unlike the use of drugs and alcohol.&nbsp;

From a Christian perspective, I cannot help but ask myself: How much does this endless entertainment contribute to my soul and character? How many years of my limited time on earth do I want to give to Hollywood and Netflix? What is there in me and my life that drives me so strongly to numb myself, fleeing from myself and reality? Or, the question I have been using to reevaluate many aspects of my life:&nbsp;

What is the relevance of this in light of eternity?&nbsp;