• Table Of Contents:
• The Purpose Of Life
• Passion and the Purpose of Philosophy
• God
• The Game
• Keeping Score
• Means and Ends
• Money
• Materialism
• Work and Business
• Investing
• Heroism, Bravery, and Glory
• Pride
• Uniqueness
• Sex
• Sex and Materialism
• Marriage
• Parenthood
• The Human Body
• Science and Technology
• Privacy
• Education
• Life Cycle
• Equality and Justice
• Art
• Entertainment and the Media
• Celebrity
• Drugs and Alcohol
• Chance and Reason
• Honesty
• Stealing
• Ethics
• Selfishness
• Helping Others
• Perspective
• The Value of Life
• Legal System

• Quotes Index »

Entertainment and the Media

Insane World

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.

Living Sanely