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The Channeling (Ways to reach your Muse) |
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The anti-Muse By Shaman Sean ?© 1999-2001 Shaman Sean. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
A big defining moment in my life was when I threw out my TV set. Though, there was a great build up that led to this action; one of the defining factors is that the TV drained creativity plain and simple. You turn it on when you get home just to hear a noise. Then you kill 2 or more hours in front of it? What did that time amount to?
For me now, it amounts to communication and socialization. Because I have no TV, I now must go to a friends house to watch it! lol. I also spend less time on it. I'm not being programmed when I watch it, because I only allow a video once and a while. (REAL movies are very similar to good artistic music; a story for another time.) But most of all, my creativity is not drained.
The funny thing, however, is that I don't miss it. I miss watching videos, cause now I have to plan them like an event. (Before I could just pop a tape in and voila.) But its worth losing the TV. Studies have proven that TV effects our metabolism as well as our actual brain wave activity. Your brain is basically mulching while you watch TV. The biggest effect of this that I noticed was how hard it was to find motivation after watching TV.
Think about it though, it makes sense. You are not thinking, you're watching. You're being stimulated (very narrow at best), but not really. You're daydreaming someone else's fabricated daydream. Now-a-days the programming also contains underlying political agendas that are pushed subliminally through all the characters and situations. Why subject yourself and your free-thinking to this menace? It used to be entertainment. But now we've found it to be entertainment with a big price. Our muse; we put her to sleep.
She's sitting there, waiting for us to experience life. She's having tea while we watch TV, then she reads a book, then eventually she goes to bed. Meanwhile, we're interested to see what happens on "Friends". We are wasting away as creative artists when we watch. We are not thinking. Our very thoughts are being guided (as the purpose of the medium); to make us feel x, y, & z. By nature the medium makes us have a contrived mental experience. Yet as you watch, your brain activity can be physically measured as it decreases.
What will you write your songs about; the next episode of "Friends"? Do you actually feel something as you watch, or do you think your feeling something? Your muse is going to leave you for another. She's going to get fed up. She came to you maybe as you were a child, full of life and wonder. You would live each day to the fullest and had no sense of time. How many lives and stories did you create and live? She fed on it. Art flowed out of you as you drew pictures every day, and played 'pretend'. As we become adults and are forced to recognize time by hurrying to everything, we lose something. Try with all your might to maintain.
Reminds me of a religious song, "come as a child, come to the water??¦" The TV is false. Be a real child, not a cathode child. Read a book or get in an argument with someone. But for heavens sake, turn off the stealer of all creativity. Motivate. Your muse can't give you magic if you don't live. There will be nothing to channel. She will say, "We'll there's not much I have to work with here." Then she'll leave.
Stop conforming to mediocrity and boredom. If you're bored then start a revolution or something. Stay away from the TV! Overthrow the government, fall in love, or go to church; do something alive! (Even going to the store is better.) Stop watching TV! Are you even aware of the time you spend now? Just for fun, keep track for one week; you owe it to your art. You just might think better and feel more, you will also live a full life without the interruption of thoughtless behavior. After a couple weeks clear, after establishing a new pattern in its place, you will find that you will get writers block less often.
If you think I'm a nutcase, look around, you might see that I'm not alone. You might see the popular bumper sticker that illustrates this frustration and slavery. It reads: "Get a life and turn off your TV" or the ever simple "Kill your TV." Peoples' art is directly linked to the life they live. TV is not like other forms of entertainment. When you watch TV you are giving up "living" for a cheap form of entertainment. This is why I've dubbed the TV as the worst anti-muse of our time (next to the internet.) Both decrease brain activity and steal creativity while filling it up with false feelings.
Call me on it, try it; see what happens. You might be surprised how you are affected. Once you get out of the gate, you may never find the need to go back. You may find like I do, that the cons outweigh the minor pros of brief entertainment and cheap laughs.
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