I Don't Do Movies

 

Good morning.  It is indeed Thursday again.

 OK.  Let’s get this out into the open.  I don’t do movies.  That’s right, I’m one of about 200 people in all of the United States who doesn’t do movies.  Oh, I’ve been to theaters and seen some, and I’ve watched some at home, but by and large I don’t do movies.  I couldn’t tell you who the stars of the screen are now, or even the past 30 or so years; nor can I tell you any of the latest movies…or even movies from last year, the year before, or even before that.

And I’m OK with that.  The wife is a little unsettled at my reluctance to attend a theater with her, and I often will do anything but turn the TV channel to a movie if I can help it.  I do watch some of the really old ones on TCM such as Casablanca, Stagecoach, Bringing Up Baby, or The Bridge On the River Kwai.  And the John Wayne movies are always good to watch.  But today’s fare for the most part is really not my thing.

I’ve often wondered why movies aren’t my thing.  I like stories.  I usually have the time to watch them.  Finances aren’t an issue with our going to the theater.  And I know the wife likes to go to the movies from time to time.  So, what’s going on here?

I’ve thought about the answer to that question for years.  The result?  I probably don’t like most movies for the same reason I won’t watch most TV shows anymore, especially the dramas, cop shows, etc.  I really don’t need any more drama or real life adventure in my daily life, and watching these things only inserts that drama into it.  I have enough reality in what I see, hear, and do each day without having to insert some kind of manufactured reality into my day in order to somehow feel fulfilled or complete.  Nor am I in any kind of competition with anyone else to see the latest movie or take in the latest TV show.  I have no need to validate my social standing by letting people know that I saw this or that flick the moment it came out.  Nor do I have need to know the latest Hollywood gossip.  I couldn’t care less.

I guess most of this kind of attitude came about as a result of my work in health care, and especially in EMS.  Over the fifteen or so years I was an EMT, and in my in-hospital work, I saw enough “reality” to last more than a lifetime.  Often in the course of that career, when I was off duty after a particularly difficult day, all I wanted to do was sit in a dark, quiet room for a time.  At the time, I thought that the things I had witnessed…the automobile wrecks, the suicides, the falls, the code blues, the deaths, the grief of loved ones, and the reality of “life will never again be as it has been,” hadn’t changed me in any material way, but I was wrong.  I made more ambulance runs than I can count.  I worked alongside nurses, respiratory therapy, and physicians in the emergency room.  I estimate that I’ve seen about three dozen humans breathe their last.  I knew most of those I helped care for, and often knew their families as well.

I don’t say those things to make myself look good or to solicit any kind of compassion.  I don’t need any of that.  I say them to bolster the thought that it was that time in my life when I began to realize that manufactured reality was not something I needed.  And that thought has continued to this day.

Even now I continue to see suffering in the form of the homeless, those in poverty, those who are addicted, the mentally ill, the down-and-out.  I don’t see it constantly, but as someone who works with benevolence in an urban, downtown church, all of that and more comes to the office door in the course of a month.

So, if you enjoy movies and TV shows, good for you.  There’s nothing wrong, as such, with participating in those things.  I would counsel you, however, to be selective in what your mind takes in and how it affects your life, living, and relationships.  And cut me some slack when I can’t visit about the cop drama that was on TV last night or the movie that came out over the weekend.  I’m just not in to that, thank you, and I’m doing fine without it.

 

Blessings,