How much has TV consumption increased since March? At least in California, where it feels like there's nothing else to do, I imagine more people are watching more TV than perhaps ever before. My own viewership has definitely dramatically increased, especially since the onset of winter.

But when you think about it, what is watching TV, really? It's kind of a strange activity for us to engage in. We basically stare at a box and watch a series of rapid images play. What's more, we often already know what's going to happen--how many movies or TV shows have you rewatched? We even suspend disbelief when we see the same person as a completely different character in another presentation. And yet we watch it anyway. We sit in a sedentary trance and become absorbed with pictures on a screen. It's sort of comical when you zoom out to the larger picture (no pun intended) and see it for what it is. What funny little monkeys we are. All around the surface of this floating sphere, there are billions of apes engrossed by a screen at any given moment.

Now, there's nothing wrong with the "telly." It's entertainment, and sometimes you just need to let the brain zone out for a bit. But it does serve as a mechanism for us to view our own behavior. How much time do we spend in that world versus our own? Are we enthralled with the fictitious characters in the viewing window, or the individuals surrounding us in our own lives? Besides, we don't know what's going to happen within our own adventure, this thing we call "life." We are all filmmakers in this medium, and we have the opportunity to create a grand epic.