by Brett Westervelt
Before you (or I) start thinking that anything I write here are original thoughts of my own, I’ll let you (and I) know that nearly all I think and say are a mix of other people’s thoughts and words laid against some (hopefully God/truth-inspired) framework that I try to figure out life with. I think that’s pretty much true of all of us. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it’s hard to know most things without seeing or hearing them in some way.
This has got me thinking about all of the movies, books, and music that I consume. Not thinking about in a, “those things are all evil and maybe I should burn them in a big bonfire,” sense but in a, “maybe my consumption of those things should be something more than mindless,” sense. If what I see and hear directly influences what I know, maybe those things are worthy of some thinking through.
Here’s the deal: media isn’t real. The process of making a movie, writing a book, writing a song involves abstraction from reality. Let’s say I wanted to make a movie about my relationship with my girlfriend. I would probably get rid of all of the boring stuff, unless it was boring in an artistic way. I might get rid of the things I’ve done in our relationship that proved me to be an idiot. I would add in some things to make it all a little more idealistic, a little more romantic; and cast someone to play me that was far more attractive. Even if I decided to make my movie an exact reflection of my relationship, flaws included, it would necessarily be much condensed. Even the most respected filmmaker only gets about three hours of story-telling time, while even the worst relationships last about a week.
I often find myself watching movies or TV instead of having a conversation of my own. Or if I’m having a conversation, I’ll just quote movies or TV because, well, those lines are much wittier and funnier than my own. I consume instead of contribute. Contributing my own thoughts about life takes a lot more work than just consuming someone else’s.
The problem with always listening to other people’s music without ever being inspired to make my own, or reading someone else’s words without ever writing my own, is that my thoughts never really become my own. I become much more robotic (in a scary way) than I was ever designed to be. The problem with watching movies at the expense of real interaction with people, is that I begin to see real life as either simpler or more complex, uglier or more beautiful than it really is. The more I deal with not reality, the more difficult it becomes to deal with reality. At the minimum, I need to be thinking as I consume, “this is not complete reality.”
Listening to a lot of Christian music makes me think that a relationship with God should be relatively easy, and always wonderful. Watching Friends all the time makes me think I can live the life of a yuppie in New York City without ever working. Playing too much NCAA Football 2005 gets me thinking that I’m a better coach than the one currently employed by my school.
It’s kind of like eating. If I spent all of my time eating and sitting in a chair, I would probably get a bit overweight. Food is meant to give you energy to do things like drive your car or play basketball. I’m pretty sure that media is only useful to the degree that it energizes or inspires us to think about the realities of our lives. If I just watch and listen without ever doing any thinking through and living of my own, I’m pretty sure I’ll find life fairly vague and a lot less than I was secretly hoping for.
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