People have the chance to live, but they spend most of their time living through others. Movie stars become famous by pretending to be other people, and real people fantasize about the lives of movie stars.
Entertainers of all types — sports figures, musicians, television stars — are worshipped from the couch. Meanwhile, never in human history has there been more opportunity for individuals to live for themselves, and never have so many people had so much disposable income to take advantage of those opportunities. Yet they don’t. Life is not a spectator sport and can’t be lived to its fullest through the sifted vision of others.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the secondhand nature of media and entertainment is the twisted perspective on life that the media provides. Most people’s lives are rarely, if ever, touched by murder, rape, or robbery, but in the nightly news, violence and tragedy are daily, commonplace events.
We hope you've enjoyed your free preview of Chapter 24: 'Entertainment and the Media' of Living Sanely In An Insane World. Buy the full book to read:
...and strategies for coping with 34 other everyday situations in our insane world!