I’m reading a book amazon/Flow-The-Psychology-Optimal-Experience/dp/0061339202 Here is a quick excerpt (regarding mass media) which is so good I am posting here. I hope you enjoy it! The tremendous leisure industry that has arisen in the last few generations has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Instead of using our physical and mental resources…many of us spend hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by multimillionaire musicians. Instead of making art, we go to admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auction. Instead of running risks by acting on our beliefs, we occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action. This vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily, the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it is a very pale substitute for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that results from the use of our skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively, each year we are wasting the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness. The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of stimulation that only mimic reality. Mass leisure, mass culture, and even high culture, when attended to passively and for extrinsic reasons—such as the wish to flaunt one’s status—are parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength in return. They leave us exhausted, more disheartened than we were before. Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing. Most jobs and many leisure activities—especially those involving the passive consumption of mass media—are not designed to make us happy and strong. Their purpose is to make money for someone else. If we allow them to, they can suck out the marrow of our lives, leaving only feeble husks.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 19:18:04 +0000
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