Addicted to Distraction

I was a TV addict in the past. Coming home from school, the TV would be the first thing on. (Later it was the computer.) At some point I slowed down my TV watching. I don’t know when, but watching movies on TNT meant having commercials every two scenes, literally. That contributed greatly to my disgust of normal TV—commercials.

When I moved to LA I never watched TV. I was too busy meeting girls. When I moved to Seattle we didn’t have a TV either. I realized I didn’t need a TV.

TVs are in many restaurants these days. I noticed that whenever there is a moving image, I tend to zone out, even if I can’t hear what’s going on. I thought it was really disrespectful to those I was eating with, and a symptom of lack of self-control on my part, so I now try to focus on the people at the table rather than the TV. (I learned that the people at the table are zoned out as well.)

Today Mom was washing veggies in the kitchen. I was waiting in front of the TV. I zoned out for a few minutes, watching TV. It was like my soul was being sucked out. I felt my attention being stolen from me, my concentration and focus out of my control. It seems I’ve come to the point of disgust toward TV.

When I turned off the TV, my mom asked why I turned it off. I said it was noisy. She said it was too quiet, that she would be bored. I asked why she was afraid of boredom. She said that old people are afraid of boredom, that grandma’s afraid of boredom, that’s why she moved to the elderly home. I pointed out that that she hadn’t answered my question. She said that everyone’s afraid of boredom, I’m the only weirdo that likes it quiet.

I wasn’t getting anywhere with this conversation and I had a green smoothie to make, so I left it at that.

I have a theory that people are afraid of boredom because they’ll start realizing certain truths about their lives. Truths like, “I’m all alone in this house”, “I have no purpose in life”, “I have no friends”. That’s why boredom must be eliminated with distraction, any distraction, whether it’s work, surfing the web, TV, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, calling friends, whatever.

This was what I noticed whenever I felt a sense of dread, of questioning my existence, of “depression” you might say. Whenever boredom set in, I would get depressed and think “bad thoughts”. My initial cure was to not get bored. It seemed to work, but eventually all the distractions would run out and I’d be back to square one.

I came to realize that all my distractions were actually distractions from the truth. The truth which I was afraid of, the truth that maybe I didn’t love myself, that I might commit suicide one day. I didn’t want to think of these possibilities. (Notice that I only considered truths that were terribly negative. Another possible truth: I was a negative person.)

I started rejecting all forms of distraction. I still entertained myself, I still hung out with friends, read books, surfed the web. But I no longer did that because I was bored. I hung out with friends to enjoy their company. I read books to learn. I surfed the web for the same reason. If I was bored, I thought. I accepted that I was bored, and contemplated why I lived and what to do with my time.

I see people around me addicted to distraction. TV, hanging out with friends, games, drinking, clubbing, music. Distraction is needed everywhere for people to stop thinking. To keep doing their mundane jobs, to study for degrees because someone said it’d be prestigious, to not face themselves.

I am surrounded by addicts and I don’t know what to do.