TV or not TV?

I am currently in a situation where I am about to "lose" the box that connects me to the world. The TV set in my house is not actually mine and the person who owns it wants it back. It has not been easy to say goodbye to it and I have been postponing the day that it will really have to go!!

Like a friend who is about to set sail to new lands and I know will live new adventures, meet new tribes, I feel jealous and at the same time possessive about "my" TV set! Because it will live on, it will go on presenting all those cooking reality shows that are so hip now and it will go on showing those 1960's movies that we have seen about 1000 times (please remember, this is Greek TV I'm talking about, no paying channels, no satellite) and it will go on exhibiting all those gossip programs that I couldn't care less about, but now all of a sudden, I do care a lot about!! Because I don't want to see it go and live and flourish - without me!!!

Whoever heard of a house without a TV set? We had a boy in school whose parents didn't own one (and it was a conscious choice, not an economical issue) and when reminiscing with old school chums, to this day, that is still the first thing I remember "oh yeah, that boy who didn't have a television in his house"! Am I going to be that boy? I can't be that boy! How am I going to face the 21st century TVless!?

I spent days thinking if I should get another TV set or not! So I came to the conclusion and firmly decided that I am not getting one! For starters, it made me feel free! I do believe one has to be in touch with what is going on in this planet, and lately most of what I watched was the news, but if there is something important going on, I will surely hear about it.

It made me feel lighter. All you hear in the news is crisis, war, personal disgraces, corruption...all this karma which is not my karma! Why do I have to share in it? It's like when you see a car accident on the edge of the road, a part of you doesn't want to look, but you can't help it, you look and you drive slowly by the site and you want to figure out exactly what happened! Their karma, not mine!

Well, for now, I will choose to abstain from what it is that channel owners want me to see, bye, believe, live by, and take in as my choices and my karma! I will be the weird boy whose house doesn't include a TV set!

That is, of course, whenever I allow my friend to take it away from me! It will have to be next month because in March I want to watch the Brazilian carnival. Oh and the month after that, I heard Master Chef Junior will be on, that will be so cute, I can't miss that one!

Did I say "firmly decided I am not getting one"? And miss out on the horoscope lady in the morning gossip show, and those delicious recipes of stuffed calamari and not seeing those Turkish soap operas with those hot lover boys and....