I am no example of freedom of thought, as I came of age when TV first came on the scene, and even though it was black and white and grainy, I was completely invested. Dad fought it, but he was never around to control, it, so he left messages behind, called “directives”, which my brother and I scoffed at. One time he monkeyed with the wiring on the set before he left for his private drinking town 115 miles awaay, and I quickly figured out what he had done and fixed it. We never talked about it.
My older brother and I were latchkey kids. Mom had to work to pay the bills so we came home to an empty house and the TV each day. But it was Three Stooges, that sort of thing. One time in the evening we were watching some show about the Revolutionary War, and it showed General Washington in a tent at Valley Forge with a young black soldier, and he was telling him that he should be patient, that things would get better, but only gradually. Mom came marching out of the kitchen and stood in front of the TV and said something like “They are showing people from back then saying words that were written yesterday.” That was memorable, it is called, I know now, “presentism”, and it is everywhere. She had a brain, never really applied it to anything however. These days she would have been in college.
I know a person who does not own a “smart” phone. I tried that but didn’t last. But I don’t begin to use smart phones as they are meant to be used, and often forget to take mine with me. I use it mostly to listen to music and comedy podcasts, and when I am at the gym. I cannot write on it, and have trouble making it work anyway. It is a tracking device, I know. During Covid I refused to allow updates, as I knew they were installing tracking programs, openly. As if I could stop them.
And we have a TV. It does not come on until 6PM, and my wife rarely watches it. I avoid all news, even weather reports, but I like watching football. I am long over baseball … during Covid they were playing before empty stadiums, and being a Cincinnati Reds fan thought “Hell, this is nothing new. The Reds have been playing before empty stadiums for decades.” They could easily move that franchise to San Antonio or Sacramento, and prosper.
If I am watching something that has advertising, I turn the sound off and look away. Ads are run in 1 or 2 second bursts, and they tend to flicker, so I can tell looking sidelong when they are over. As if that protects me from the medium, meant to control our thoughts. I am told that my eyes take in everything while my conscious brain misses almost everything.
Piece of Mindful 