No more TV.

When I first came back to the White Mountain region in September, I stayed in a place with no cable, therefore no Regis and Kelly or Today show in the morning and no Ellen or Oprah in the afternoon. But I loved it! Well, it took awhile. First waking up, I grabbed my coffee and kinda just wandered around the house from window to window, looking outside and standing in silence. It was really weird at first, all the silence, but soon I felt calmer and my brain just cleared up of "noise". I looked at the leaves blowing across the lawn, the waves of the lake brushing up on the sand and even the dust on the window-sill. I started my days quicker in the morning because I had nothing else to do. It was awesome! I now temporarily live with my dad nearby for the winter, and guess what, there is a TV. Actually two TVs. And I'm sucked back in. News shows in the morning leave me feeling like I just wasted an hour of my day. It is really hard to shut it out if you have it in front of your face staring at you. It is easy to break the morning silence with the quick press of the "on" button. I don't even really listen. I just sort of stare at it, letting the time pass, thinking of silence.

I came to a conclusion the other day. Do you ever feel that when you don't watch TV or don't go on the internet, that you are missing something or out if the loop?? Weird. When in fact, the "real" world is right in front of you, if you would just look up for a second.

I leave with a quote (I know, of course, it's Thoreau):

"Simple living is not about living in poverty or self-inflicted deprivation. Rather, it is about living an examined life -one in which you have determined what is important, or "enough", for you, disregarding the rest."