Randi Kreiss

Why do we squander our most precious gift?

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I was looking for a sharp stick the other night, because I had promised myself that I would rather poke myself in the eye than watch another news blast about D.T. You know, the guy with the red squirrel squatting on his head.

In my house, my husband turns on the TV as he walks into or through a room, in the same way that one might turn on an oxygen machine in a dead zone. It’s always there, in the background, too loud, too repetitive, too blathering, too insignificant.

We all know that news shows ran out of news long ago. Most of the time they reprocess the meat of a story until it comes out like sausage, link after link, hour after hour. I get a feeling close to revulsion when I pass through the room and see a know-nothing anchor interviewing his own reporter, who once interviewed a spokesperson who represents an insignificant staff member of a midlevel politician.

That sucking sound in the room? It’s our brains, draining into the flat-screen TV on the wall. I will leap to the assumption that you agree with me that most American adults and children clock too many hours sitting passively in front of our televisions.

All of which makes me think about the opposite — the ways in which we spend truly wonderful, productive time every day. I invite you to examine your own waking hours and consider how much total joy you experience in any day, in any week. And what are those joyful moments, and how can you, how can all of us get more of them in our own lives?

I will note that some television does bring great pleasure; it’s all about moderation. Sunday evenings I watch “Downton Abbey.” I devoted several well-spent hours last month watching the Netflix series “The Fall.” I watched it over six delicious evenings, tucked into my warm bed while snow fell outside and a serial killer weaved his awful web on the TV.

TV has its fun programs. Problem is, I spend plenty of additional time, way too much time, on other screens, from my phone to my computer to my Kindle. Aside from the Kindle, where I read books and magazines, the numerous hours of texting and Googling and Mapquesting and Facebooking and Amazoning, dozens of hours a month, are not joyful, but plodding and addictive and wasteful.

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