TV and movie’s can function as a type of forced meditation. They are entertaining because they distract us from the mundaneness of our thoughts, the torture our anxieties, and the agony of our obsessions. Watching the screen is one of the most effective forms of escape, and although it may not cause a hangover or lead you to selling your body for another hit, it is still highly addictive.

I have watched a lot of TV in my life. A lot. If you want to talk about tv shows that were on during the 80’s and 90’s I am your girl. As a “latchkey” kid I would sometimes watch TV from 4 in the afternoon to 9pm straight. In high school when I was depressed after a break-up I would console myself with Seinfeld and 90210 instead of doing homework. TV was like a medicine for my consciousness because for those blissful passive moments I could escape my thoughts.

But I feel like I wasted a lot of time watching stupid shit. Time I could have been living life creating actual memories were spent observing plastic moments of mediocre acting. When I finished college and moved into another apartment, I got rid of the TV and never looked back. It was a relief not to have the temptation, and I really didn’t miss it. If I was dying to watch something, it was a much more intentional choice then just doing something to pass the time. I would watch things on the computer so it felt more intellectual, like films that could be considered artistic and thought provoking, documentaries about subjects I wanted to learn about, and conspiracy theories about everything from politics to alien descendants.

Because of my own experience with media I have been very controlling about not wanting to expose Munch to TV. She has seen a few Youtube videos of puppies and people playing music, but that was it. The trance that is evoked when we are watching the screen is disturbing to me, and I was honestly afraid of what it would do to her brain, her ability to play or be entertained by existence, and if it would create desire to watch things compulsively.

Maybe I am over thinking things and being excessively anal, but I have been really concerned about the effects and tentative to experiment. But Munch has been so sick and dismal that I let her watch her first movie today. At first I started with Annie because that was my first movie, but she puke about 30 minutes in so that was interrupted by my 78th load of laundry. I then decided try the documentary Babies next… I figured it was the least harmless, she could learn about her kind, and is beautifully filmed.

But of course for the rest of the afternoon every time we were near my computer she would say “see babies!” over and over. So we watched it twice.