Resolve, reasons, timeliness.
I remember watching the TV show Friends way back when and wanting my life to be like that, and wondering why it couldn’t be.
What occurs to me now is perhaps the most subtle, strong, permeating aspects (and perhaps problems) with TV:
In every ‘good’ tv show, things work out. Maybe not the way we want them to, but there are reasons and resolve for the story lines.
There’s no waiting around in TV. And we watch a lot of TV. So TV teaches us a constant need for resolve and reasons in a timely fashion.
We always find out why the guy came back to the girl, what’s wrong with the main characters, why the father left the kids, why the killer killed. All the important unknowns become known within thirty minutes or a few hours. If they don’t become known we complain and call it a bad TV show, or criticize it for not tying it all together.
From the time we are born, every time we turn on the TV we get another dose of resolve and reasons: quickly. Over and over again. It’s been deeeeeeply ingrained in our brains.
We long for it. That sweet resolve. Not only a reason for everything but a KNOWN reason for everything.
I’d argue that’s a huge reason why we like TV to begin with. We want it (life) all to make sense. And we see this fundamental desire beautifully fulfilled on TV.
Every ‘good’ TV story gives this to us.
Most of real life (almost all of it) isn’t like this.
But we have grown to expect the same amout of reasons, resolve and timelines we see on TV. In TV we want it…and we get it. In real life…
We don’t get resolve. We don’t get all the reasons. Certainly not in the time frame we wish for.
And we don’t like it. We think we SHOULD have all the reasons…that’s what makes a good story. And after all that’s what we’ve experienced watching a bazillion hours of humans on television. So that’s the way it’s suppose to be, right?
We associate reasons, resolve and timelines with Good.
And the absence of these things in our lives as Bad…or not-as-good…therefore heightening our levels of dissatisfaction with life…because these ‘good things’ are nearly always absent in real life!
So as our mothers told us…TV is not real life.
We must learn to not get hung up on loose ends of our own lives. To not insist on having all the reasons right now. To not dwell on the unresolved.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com