Thglimited - Heavy Industries

Leisure in my life mostly consists of television and entertainment. While I have early memories of playing outside and letting my imagination run wild with neighborhood friends, sometime after I no longer cared for the same recreational play. I had a swing set and slide I cherished playing with, especially the rope swing with a bright green seat that hung solely from the largest tree in the front yard, the same tree I’d gather leaves from and make my dog “salads” he wouldn’t eat, I could never fool him. But one day I suppose we installed cable TV and the days of watching cartoons only on Saturday were gone.

Perhaps moving to a new region of Texas and losing the companions I once had when I played outside, took a bigger part in my transition from outdoors to inside and on the couch. On the other hand I was an impressionable 7-year-old with two older brothers addicted to video games that were all the rage. From then on out, technology and the media had it’s hooks on me and even my desire to gain Accelerated Reader (AR) points had diminished and I was addicted to the array of channels that never seemed to spew a dull moment.

An organic lifestyle seemed to be far from where I was and I had yet to reach middle school at that point. My natural instincts no longer seemed to strive for the play that should allow me to maximize my urge for survival. I suppose I grasped the sense of a material lifestyle with greater ease than any early primitive people would ever anticipate. It stuns me now to know that at such an early age I gave myself up to live vicariously through what I saw on television or in life. But on the other hand I always did wonder why I felt such strong emotional connections with characters that often left me teary-eyed.

Perhaps an entertainment fast could save me from the material way of life, if I’m not too far-gone to ever regain the natural instinct of play and organic lifestyle. Making a firm decision to take a step back from entertainment and the laziness that comes attached, and forcing myself to go outside and enjoy physical activity like I did when I was a kid.

Sometimes this leisure time of mine pulls me back from the things I should be more on top of. If it is the same for me as it is in society, perhaps the biggest challenge is letting go watching people do things and doing them myself, in the physical/fitness sense, but on some level I’m sure my work is transcribed the same way. If I allow myself to watch people play sports, live lives and do things then what stops me from watching them do the work I should do myself. Could this be the problem with too much leisure time in the modern world, especially with young people who grew up in the media storm and technology boom? I’m not sure if this is the peak of our leisure time being material based; bring us right back down the continuum into that organic/natural state.