Follower

Park yourself in front of a piece of modern art. A field of color, a blank piece of paper on which the barest trace of pencil can be seen, a series of instructions, pieces of monofilament, put yourself in a space you've not been in before. Maybe you'll get something out of it, maybe it will make you more aware of yourself and maybe you'l lose yourself in it. Maybe an angry "what is this?" will come to mind or maybe an ineffable feeling will rise over you and then leave without you having identified it. What matters is that at a certain level the works says nothing, and offers instead an opportunity to make something of it, for the colors to not just resonate in your eyes but in some deeper part of your sensory experience, knowldege, and memory. It's quiet enough so that you have an opportunity to think, to explore your own mind.

Pick a show and start watching. Entertainment is of course not about thinking, at least while the show is running. It's there to lead you through a series of impressions and emotions and have you think about the right thing, like "don't go through that door", rather than about anything else. If meditation is about clearing your mind then a particularly well crafted piece of entertainment can do the job, without the quiet or the mental effort. Being heavily tuned to introspection brings me around again and again to the things which drag my attention away from the series of thoughts which run on endlessly, even without an audience. These things, by and large, are pieces of entertainment, easily digestable morsels of emotional engagement. A show or film, if it is to successfully hook a viewer, needs to have a good guide. Our hero, our main character, or supporting character, anyone who the viewer can latch on to and say, I'm willing to follow you wherever you go. I'm willing to watch your struggle. I can never watch shows whose main purpose is to present terrible people doing terrible things (South Park, Archer, Always Sunny), because I have nothing to connect to, and therefore cannot be carried along. For me, having no emotional involvement means the entertainment hasn't worked. It hasn't delivered me from myself.

The effect of this is that if I am involved with a character I am nearly blind to the other parts of the show which aren't working as well. Once I've effectively fallen in love with a show or film it gets a generous helping of vaseline and careful, rosy lighting. Cliches rankle less, shoddy effects stop registering, obvious plot devices are forgiven and forgotten. I've surrendered any critical thought or keen observation to be again immersed in something akin to infatuation. The best part is that it's always there, pre-packaged and standards-compliant, waiting only for me to start watching a much-loved show for the feeling to be rekindled.

So I've returned to it, again and again. Other feelings, impressions and emotions fleeting and poignant and more real, are kept behind locks which have few keys, rarely found. No wonder I have chosen the path of least resistance.

Most of the things which have insulated me over the past few years have been discussed in this blog. I have waited for something more artistically worthy to catch me like all of the shlock and camp and shiny things have over the years, which is, characteristically, the wrong approach. Do I have grounds to believe that what's not clamoring for my attention will recieve it?