Saint Jude / Patron of Lost Causes
I have become a committed TV watcher. By that I mean for the first time since childhood I am planning life around what is on the television that night. I'm too old to be embarrassed by it, but at the same time, I am not proud of it either.
It is to be expected I suppose. For the last thirty years or so, if I haven't been working, I have been at a little league game, or performance, or recital of some kind or other, or hitting ground balls in the front yard; all things I enjoyed, by the way (okay, and the occasional night out with the boys). But now with only one son living at home, and he on his own, my wife and I have evenings free and have begun to waste said evenings watching regular prime-time television.
I have never been so normal. I like it. I think.
American Idol. . .
24 . . .
Boston Legal. . . Life. . . Office. . . I'm hooked. They, or it, has got me. How do I loose myself from this enjoyable grip?
"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."*
I admit, in the hierarchy of evils, excessive television watching is at the low end of bad, nevertheless, goodness is a habit achieved at the expense of the other law working in me. There is
some self-denial in any good act, some thing to which I must say "no" as I am saying "yes" to the Good. Some remote to put down and some book to pick up.
At least it seems to me. I say this knowing that two opposing but commonly accepted views are always pulling at me, that the real evil is in believing
in the existence of the Good (Nietzsche), or that Faith is
perfection of the world and not the
redemption of the world (nearly every religious broadcast). I'll oppose those notions, remote in hand or not, because I believe the Great Philosopher who said that
virtue is the
habit of doing
good. There is just no explaining that away.
Which is why I like
Boston Legal, it neither denies depravity or promotes the angelic.
That's Tuesday and Wednesday night, 8 - 11pm. In case you were wondering.
------------------------------------
* Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans