I stopped watching television for about 5 months in the hopes that giving up something significant might move God to intervene in a high stakes political issue. He didn’t; at least not in the way I’d hoped.
I opened the HBO app for the first time in nearly half a year, and to my surprise I was still signed in.
If I’m remembering correctly, the first thing I put on was Sex & The City. I’ve seen it a million times.
And it was still a good show, but this time, something felt different.
I’m struggling to articulate it.
It was something I’d started feeling about entertainment in general even before I decided to abstain from it.
Shows and movies that I once thought were brilliant, clever, or well-executed were beginning to feel contrived, cliche and manufactured.
If this sounds pretentious, I promise the point of this isn’t to try to convey that I’m “above” watching tv and listening to music or that I have bespoke, high brow tastes. My favorite show of all time is Always Sunny and I think I’d still laugh at a 2000s Adam Sandler movie if I put one on. If you read this to the end, you’ll see that this is more of a condemnation of myself than anyone else.
It felt somewhat like that arc in South Park where everything sounds and looks like poop to Stan.
Media that I once reveled in was beginning to repulse me.
Perhaps the most poignant example of this was The Hateful Eight.
The first time I saw it nearly a decade ago I was in my early 20s. I remember thinking it was a masterpiece.
I thought the cinematography was stunning, I remember being engaged from start to finish and being floored by Quentin Tarantino’s unwaning talent.
Watching it last winter, I cringed. A lot.
The premise was interesting and it was still visually stunning, but the themes, dialogue and plot – even if well written compared to works on similar subject matter – were uninspired even if it wasn’t as predictable or formulaic.
One scene in particular that stood out to me was when Samuel L. Jackson’s character recounts forcing a confederate soldier to strip down in freezing temperatures, crawl on his hands and knees, and perform fellatio for the promise of a blanket. I don’t remember if he actually gave it to him.
I don’t consider myself a prude. I don’t think my issue was the explicit nature of the scene, but how juvenile and gratuitous it seemed.
It had the same flavor of the later seasons of The Boys, where writers seemed to lose any sense of subtlety or sophistication, and insisted on making everything as grotesque and graphic as possible, lest they leave viewers with even the slightest room for complex thought or nuance.
“DA RAYCIST WHITEY HAD TO PUT A BLACK PENIS IN HIS MOUF” is something I’d expect from a Netflix diversity hire with a Septum piercing and pronouns in their email signature; not a filmmaking legend.
It’s literally woke revenge porn.
But lately, almost everything I watch or listen to sounds the same to me.
And it’s not exclusively political. But it’s not not political.
I don’t need everything I consume to echo my worldview.
I actually think it’s a sign of intellectual limitation to only be able to find value or meaning in having what you already believe regurgitated to you in familiar terms.
But everything seems to reek of the same rot.
It all seems to boil down to this lazy, recycled, soulless psychological sewage that hijacks and indulges the worst parts of us, insulting the viewer’s intelligence while simultaneously lecturing us.
What bothered me more than what I’d noticed in “the arts” was my reaction to it – or lack thereof.
I would recognize the same slop repackaged over, and over, and over again, and I didn’t change my behavior.
I realized that even if I could extract something interesting from it, what I was absorbing was mostly empty, destructive and a chronic waste of time.
But as clear as it was to me, I would turn on the tv day after day and repeat the ritual, knowing it was doing nothing of value for me. I’d find myself bristling with disdain, rolling my eyes and scowling at the screen, and just keep going back for more.
And I began to think about why there can be such a dramatic gap between what we know we should do and what we actually do.
I began to wonder why my instinct was to continue a habit that I’d developed contempt for.
It’s a question even the most committed Christians have been forced to ask themselves.
Paul asked it in Romans when he wrote, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
I wish I could tell you I was beginning to piece together an answer.
I thought about Jesus in Gethsemane, before His crucifixion, and His disciples falling asleep not once but twice as He agonized about what was to come.
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
I thought about the same Peter so bold in his convictions that he sliced off a Roman soldier’s ear to protect His Lord denying Him three times just hours later.
These were men that lived tumultuous, persecuted lives and were brutally murdered (with the exception of John) for spreading the Gospel.
And still, they failed.
None of us will ever be perfect because none of us will ever be Jesus.
Obviously, nothing about me or my life compares to these martyrs. They are some of the bravest men that ever lived and changed the course of history.
But even if we can’t ever fully overcome our humanity in our time on Earth we should remember that we are defined not by our sin but by our Savior.
I thought about how I’d given up alcohol for 6 months, how I’d become more disciplined with my eating, how consistently I’d been writing, how far I’d come in my walk with God…and I still struggled in every area. I still drank too much on too many occasions. I still would binge through my groceries like a ravenous hog. It was still difficult for me to maintain a consistent publishing schedule. Feelings of impatience, anxiety and despair I liked to think I’d conquered still came rushing back to the surface.
And still, I’ve glorified Him. And still, I’ve improved in every area. And still, I’ve grown closer to my Creator and feel the weight of my trespasses more heavily.
That isn’t an excuse to shrug them off or be complacent in them, but should motivate us to keep reaching towards heaven and keep trying to obey God no matter how many times we fall short, and no matter how incapable we feel.
King Solomon wrote “as a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly,” and he was right., He met his demise the way so many unexceptional men before him and after him did; by his loins. He was renowned for his wisdom, and he was nevertheless a fool. To some degree, we all are.
But thank God we don’t have to rely on our own strength, willpower or wisdom to become who He made us to be.
We are nothing, but He is everything and through Him all things really are possible.
what do you think?