Passionate Living

Plenty has been said about how TV is bad for you. In the modern Web 2.0 era, several digital media experts even say that broadcast is obsolete. With the advent of online programs, now you can choose what to watch, when to watch, and where to watch it.

Fatty watching himself on TV by Cloudzilla

The generation that grew up sharing a culture – everyone watching Happy Days or The Brady Bunch – doesn’t apply any longer in the digital era. Each person tailors her own consumption of entertainment, everyone having their own versions of top hit singles and favorite TV shows. The possibility of us all going “Hey, I haven’t heard that in a long time!” in the future is a small possibility.

Yet, in the middle of this rapid digital distribution, TV can be good for you. The uncontrollable aspect of major broadcasting can sometimes lead to serendipitious discoveries. The things you discover while watching uncurated programs or mindless browsing through the channels just might inspire you with something new.

Here are 3 ways that we can all do to make watching TV in an internet era be good for us:

1. Keep an open mind

The basis of this is for us to be open to new possibilities. TV programs are less specific than niche websites, but they are diverse enough to display several topics within one hour of programming. Simply tuning into several different channels for 30 minutes or 1 hour and interpreting it with our own minds can lead to some interesting discoveries of our own.

2. Don’t watch the news

The programs produced on TV can open our eyes towards new things and new information we might else not discover in our curated internet world. Yet, the danger of uncurated information is that it can be negative and affect how we feel throughout the day. Therefore, it’s better to avoid definite sources of negative information, such as news channels, and spend time on the positive information channels, such as:

3. Watch community programs

This is the most important aspect of watching TV: if you have a local channel, or at least one that is broadcasted by your city for your city, community programs are an excellent way to learn about what’s happening in your neighborhood. You can learn much about your environment, what is the primary concern of the moment, what kind of hobby groups and activities are going on at the moment, and whether you are interested enough to join in the activity or not. Also, plenty of entrepreneurs can make a comfortable living establishing a community based business: a small business that caters to the need of a limited community. Therefore, knowing about the needs of a community is important if you are interested in developing a business.

Serendipity is the name of the game. You can do this also with magazines and radio. Just because the internet is there, doesn’t mean we should abandon all other media channels, even though we could. The curated nature of broadcast programming subjects us to the personal flavor of the program producer, music director, and magazine editor and can expose us to new information that can be good for us.

So, start exploring today: watch a little more TV, buy one or two local magazines, and listen to the radio on your mobile – you’ll never know what you’ll discover.

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Episode 1: Running Away From Your Problems
Episode 2: A Millionaire Affair
Episode 3: Romance in Marriage
Episode 4: An Undoable Mistake
Episode 5: The Cost of Negative Energy

Looking to the past by ~Butterfly-HC

Cecilia and I didn’t exchange many words on the way to her studio. The positive energy that was previously there between us had been drained away by the negative energy of her fiance. Both of us had things on our mind, and it prevented us from talking to each other.

During her phone conversation, Cecilia did her best to defend me as a friend who is truly just a friend. She tried to comfort the anger and jealousy of her fiance by reassuring him there is nothing between her and I. Cecilia also mentioned that he didn’t know what I was like, and if he did he would understand that I am really no threat to their relationship.

But Cecilia also mentioned I didn’t fit with any of her other friends. I suppose she said this because her fiance might have suggested or asked why we couldn’t meet up in the company of her other friends. Her statement made me think about the truth to that question: Why are Cecilia and I friends?

Lonely excitement

When I think about it, her fiance does have a point: Cecilia and I share almost nothing in common, and we come from almost completely different backgrounds. The only similarity we shared was a moment in 2001 when we were in the same room, doing the same thing together. Is that a strong enough bond to justify a friendship?

I’m quite convinced I like seeing Cecilia not because I have a secret agenda with her. I like having conversations with her because I believe there’s much value to be created. The synergy of her character with mine, often results in inspiration good for the both of us.

But sometimes I wonder whether Cecilia doesn’t feel the same way, and the excitement is mine alone. Her fiance might be right, in that she and I don’t have a strong enough reason to see each other. And for a moment, I believed that thought.

Mrs. Cecilia

It made me upset, knowing that I won’t see her just as a friend anymore. Cecilia told me that we might not be able to meet up without her fiance – soon to be husband – there with us. She politely asked that I understand and I replied that of course I do.

On the drive back, I thought about why this was irritating me. Then I found out it was because I was accused of being a man I wasn’t. Her fiance’s response was as if I was a man who might try to steal her from him; and that made me furious.

Then I realized, I don’t have time for his childish behavior. I don’t have time to be involved in his game of jealousy and self-satisfaction. The drama their playing, is so 25 years ago for me; and that’s what made me upset.

Still, I hate missing out on an opportunity to create value.

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THE BLACK SWAN theory is based on the previous English belief that all swans are white; this was accepted as unquestionable truth by the British from “thousands of years of observations”, until they landed upon the shores of Australia where, lo and behold, they found a black swan. In modern terms, the Black Swan is a term used to describe an event that is very unlikely to happen (in the magnitude of almost impossible in statistical terms), yet happens anyway and has a significant impact in human history and society, whether politically and/or culturally. The Black Swan, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts it, is “the impact of the highly improbable”.

THE BLACK SWAN book became a Black Swan experience as I read it; I didn’t expect to learn so much from a field of study that I rarely read about. Originally, I was considering buying one of Malcolm Gladwell’s book (particularly Outliers), but I felt I already knew what Gladwell talks about – so I decided to take a chance and see what would happen with the Black Swan. True to the Black Swan theory, this unexpected event became a positive experience for me, because I learned much about philosophy through the eyes of the empirical skeptic Nassim Taleb (or NNT as he abbreviates himself), and also learned a beautiful term for something that has been on my mind for some time: DOMAIN DEPENDENCE.

The meat of The Black Swan talks about “how not to be a turkey”, where NNT emphasizes the importance of the things we don’t know yet let this unknowledge take control of the most important decisions in our lives. But for me the greatest lesson was hidden in a two word term, mentioned only once throughout the whole book; a term that gave me a eureka moment where pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fell into place and the light to the answer became brighter. Domain dependence, is the lesson for this month.

I used to call it COMPLIANCE; and to better illustrate the point, let’s take an example of a story. There are many personal development and motivational seminars nowadays, ranging from FREE to full-fledged limited-gala-dinner VIP packages, and many people interested in participating in these events. A person may come to a seminar, obtain a new paradigm, experience good change within him – change that gives him more strength to strive for his dreams – and get a boost of positive energy for days maybe weeks to come. Yet, after some time, that energy dissipates and he returns to his previous condition, where he is without the focus and courage he felt during the seminar. He then goes to another seminar, repeats the process, experiences the same emotions, gains the same confidence, and returns to normal life with a new found energy again. But the cycle repeats, and after some time, he runs out of energy, again.

This person may attend enough personal seminars that he knows the material off by heart and may even be able to become a speaker himself. Yet he keeps needing to come back to the same seminars, the same experience, the same keywords, the same charts and explanations, the same homework to do when the seminar ends, and the same motivation to do what needs to be done. He can’t keep the energy he grew at the seminar, and keep it also at the place where he needs to make a change. This is called DOMAIN DEPENDENCE; the inability to transfer our powers in one domain of our lives (for example, confidence during motivational seminars), to another domain in our lives that need work (for example, a broken or stagnant family relationship).

I used to call it COMPLIANCE, because this is my belief: after attending a motivational seminar, our minds think we have done enough, our energy feels used and satisfied, so we are compliant when we return to our natural habitats. We are compliant, because we think we have already become part of the change and part of the solution. The truth is; developing our paradigm is only the first step – after, action needs to be done, and that can’t be done if we are still COMPLIANT or DOMAIN DEPENDENT.

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