Entertainment

Is there such a thing as too much entertainment? 

Entertainment is definitely necessary but it is time to mull over if we are letting entertainment take over our lives. 

When the world pushes things at you at an immeasurable pace, it is very easy to fall into consuming all that we see and fancy, should we feel so stressed after our daily jobs or day-to-day schedule. However, should we pause and think before we go on a consuming spree? Mindfully, thoughtfully.. 

In this age we live in, there is a handful of new movies every week, new TV shows almost every day, new cinema theaters, stand-up comedy, sit-down comedy, reality shows, news shows, documentary shows and I am sure we could add more categories and sub-categories and genres here. Let’s take reality shows for example, there are talent shows for music & dance, for cooking (as if that isn’t good enough, there’s also baking shows and family baking shows!), for home-decor, for re-modeling, for gardening and on and on. 

For the common man returning home after a hard day’s work, it is so very easy to be consumed by this choice of available entertainment. And this is just talking of TV. The more we consume the content, the more is pushed at you. ‘Customized to your interest’ they say. 

Unwinding and rejuvenating is as important as it is to work hard to lead a comfortable life. This digital age has taken over and people seem to know more about what they don’t really need to know as opposed to what adds value to their own life. On popular social media, we are connected to hundreds of friends. How many of them do we really know and truly care about. Let’s say the number of friends a person has on social media is about 230, let’s discount family and extended family and cousins etc from this list and focus just on friends. Let’s say after the above discounting the number of friends sit at 130. That is 100 people we think we are ready to consume daily information of/ from and hear all their updates. May be there are people that are really interested in keeping track of every single friend they have met and played and blossomed with as children into adulthood – but this may be a smaller number. 

We seem drawn to knowing about day-to-day lives of people we may hardly be in touch across continents, even as opposed to knowing our immediate neighbors and the community that we live and are an active part of. 

In a few years, the happening trend is going to be disconnect and focus on things that add real value to our life. Our life is defined by the people around us everyday, the food we eat, our health and lifestyle and the choices we make. Think about what we are eating, the way we are eating, the way we cook. For in good health, good company and good community our lives are enriched. 

Less entertainment, as needed, is more. Pull only what is needed, as opposed to consuming what is pushed at us. We need to take care of ourselves, in all dimensions. Entertainers care only about entertaining us, making sure we forget our daily drudgery momentarily and revel for a few moments in the alternate reality. If we choose more of entertainment than what is needed, we may start dwelling in that alternate reality without even realizing it and more focus will be taken away from our existential reality. To make our lives beautiful and meaningful, we need to apply a lot of thought into how we unwind and relax and consume what the entertainment world has to offer.