Many of the people I know don’t know that one fact, we don’t have TV at home. Not because we cant afford it but we don’t really need it. My sister and I grew up in a generation where TV is a pacifier for energetic kids with busy parents. It was an escape of teenagers when things are unsure and emotions are like roller-coaster rides. It then was an escape for adults to be adults and face reality.
We liked watching everything from sun up to sun down. We ate breakfast, get ready to school and work while watching morning TV shows. We enjoyed lunch with entertaining noontime shows and siesta with afternoon drama. Our dinner consists of evening news and prime time drama. And extending supper or having midnight snack with late night TV shows or movie marathons. Our lives revolved with the lives of other people in the television. We were so busy with what’s happening in that big box that we forgot to live outside the box.
When my father was going back and forth to the hospital and we needed to moved homes, our jouney of life without television began. We started focusing on each other and tried to understand how to cope with everything that is going on. Day and night, our worries were endless. We needed more quiet time to recharge and fight a new day. Old-fashioned radios helped a lot in the beginning, we can listen to it for early morning news or music when needed. Most of time however, we don’t. With today’s technology as well, almost every information we needed is available. We started learning how to filter what we need to consume. Slowly, day by day, we learned to let go and survived the day without that big box.
The silence without television is liberating. We began to appreciate other sounds around us more, the birds chirping, the laughter, the kids playing and shouting, the rustling leaves, the wind blowing, the drops of rain and sometimes, the quiet sobs at night. We had more time to do other things and focus on each other. We had more time to go to the park, workout, sleep, cook, study, read books, laugh at each others jokes, sing, play, go to other places, explore, write and listen to each other’s story.
For some, the quietness is deafening and lonely. But for us, life without television is tranquility.
Simply Jhong 