Sit back, relax and enjoy.
I saw a book in a shop this week all about thinking differently and therefore making your life more successful, less stressful and generally better. The basic point was that people who make a difference to the World start first by making a difference to their own lives. It's really simple too: When they have a good idea they put it into action despite it being daunting. Some people make a huge difference to their own lives without impacting on the World as well which is great too. Then there's us - we like an easy life.
We make no difference to anyone. Not even ourselves.
If you're a committed (not necessarily institutionalised) Who fan the chances are that you will watch every Who story available more than once, read about the programme regularly and spend time discussing it with fellow fruitloops. You might even go to the length of having your own blog and enjoy endlessly correcting your friends by telling them "it's not a blog - it's a site" despite reality.
We're talking years of lives - you don't win them back. There's no 10p when you redeem the bottle and it doesn't work like the Co-Op dividend either. The time is lost. Forever. Gone. Wasted. And you don't have the bottle anymore anyway.
What has begun to worry me more than anything else is that most fans I know have a secondary waste of time, some even more. Perhaps you'll watch Life on Mars, Lost, 24 or perhaps you're gonna have a weekend with that great Bod DVD. I stayed up into the early hours of this morning watching motor racing from America on the internet. My eyes hurt and on the whole it was dull. But I know exactly why I did it.
I tell people I enjoy it. The Life on Mars people tell me they watch it cause they enjoy it, comic fans read comics because they enjoy them. But the truth is they can all be used as displacement activities.
The motor racing was enjoyable because it stopped me from doing the hoovering, tidying my room and all the other things that I tell myself are outlawed on a Friday night. In short, it stopped me from organising my life and taking control. That is the peril of displacement activity.
I read an article by the environmental campaigner George Monbiot this week and he made a similar point regarding conspiracy theorists after he was attacked for saying he did not believe that there was a 9/11 conspiracy. The main thrust of his argument was that conspiracy theories are the political equivalent of displacement activity. Rather than getting involved with real issues and getting out and campaigning, conspiracy nuts can get their kicks safe at home in the knowledge that nobody can ever enter an informed debate with them. They don't leave the house to investigate their claims or campaign for changes. If anything, they just hamper real causes trying to get on the political agenda by taking up precious newsprint.
Reading comics all night, eating fast food, watching every surviving episode of Up Pompeii in one sitting might keep people happy for hours but waste a lifetime. That novel you could have written, that invention you're waiting for somebody else to patent, that boyfriend waiting to discover he's yours. It's all out there but you have to search it out and get it while you can.
[ooh! Hang on "Song for Ten" has just come on - I'll be back in 3 minutes and 29 seconds.]
Perhaps you don't want to achieve anything: professionally, personally, whatever. Fine but at least be man or woman enough to admit to yourself that you waste nearly every moment of your life filling it with Dr Who, Battlestar Gallactica, anything with a bloody spaceship in it, comics, football (come on the Imps!), beer, soaps. Don't use 'enjoyment' as an excuse not to join the human race.
There's another way which, in the long term, might lead to greater satisfaction and more enjoyment.
Give up most of the time you spend on displacement: get a girlfriend, cook a new dish, walk in the countryside during the rain, interact with humanity a bit more, ditch those blogs you sad git. Just get off your fat ass, Jon and do something with your life.
Oh sod it.
The Undefinable Magic of Dr Who
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6 comments:
This was fear when joining a Doctor Who group, that i would be classed a fan and not simply as an individual who enjoys something.
I for one do not watch every Who story there is and certainly not over and over.
I joined a group to interact in a social environment with people that could become friends. This is what i have done, the way i did that was to focus it on something i knew about and liked. But it got me out, i was in control of what i did.
I also do not watch every sci-fi/cult show going.
To be honest my first interests i would say are music, art, theatre, culture, history etc. It just so happens that i did make Dr Who my way of meeting people, right place, right time, and it was an activilty which was right up my street! Hey i thought lets combine this to get myself out and doing something i will hopefully enjoy!
The moral of this story is, you cant sterotype Who fans, this was my concern. People are individual despite liking cult TV!
Anyway that is me, i have never been one to be part of a crowd. But i guess people do fall under certain categories otherwise they wouldnt have them!
Well, there are two points here: 1. Who are these go-getters who don't waste their lives? Because I've never met them! Everyone I know, Doctor Who fan or just plain old 'Not We' spends a frightening amount of time doing a fair amount of nothing. No one has either done anything amazing with their life or career... or anything else for that matter. And yes, they might all moan about it - but they don't actually mean it! They just injoy moaning - and who doesn't!!
2. The people who have done something with their hobbie (The Gary Russell's, Nick Brigg's and EVEN Russell T Davies of this world) are royally critizied for being sad 'tossers' by the same members of this board who put the rant on in the first place... So there is no winning.
And then there is the factor that anyone who is successful in one aspect in life - looses out on another. Most people who have amazing careers have rubbish homelifes and vice-versa.
Yes. With a bit of change you can improve one aspect of your life - but would you want to loose the bits you do enjoy in the process? There is no such thing as the perfect life - and you'll always find something to moan about.
But what all of you over look is that it's probably not the time we spending doing things we 'like' - as Jon puts it. But the time we spend doing things that we're indifferet to!
Now looking through my listings magazine I see that I've marked about eight hours of television this week that I'm actually interested (to a greater or lesser extent) in actually watching.
Two hours would be programmes I'd actually really want to watch (and I'm sure to Jon's disgust one of those is Life on Mars!) and I have NO PROBLEM justifying the time I'm going to spend watching them. I am allowed to have a couple of hours off moving my life forward!!
Then five hours are items I'm not wildly interested in - and really only have as a background as I fill in papers for work, send my CV etc. Again not a problem justifying this.
But I know for a fact that I will also watch programmes that did not particularly interest me - instead of watching those DVDs I bought - and yes, I probably am still doing the paperwork. But I'm also still wasting time I could be spending DOING THINGS I ACTUALLY ENJOY. (A programme I genuinely wish to see etc)
And that's the real kicker. Not the time you spend doing useful but boring things (paperwork, housework - phoning your mother!) all of which do take a lot of time but are worth it in the long term. Or the time you spend doing things you really enjoy - I can justify spending about an hour - probably more reading books. Doesn't achieve anything - but it isn't a waste of my time either. Or watching telly I actually really enjoy. Or listening to music that makes me (Put in emotion of choice).
It's the time that I spend doing things that are neither constructive OR make me happy. And that's probably the majority of my time.
For example, yesterday I watched a documentary about mental illness - was it interesting - well, mildly. I also spent a stupid amount of time playing Monster Match on the Doctor Who website. Utterly pointless. I'm writting this - I'm not even interested in what I'm saying let alone anyone else! It's actually the little things you shouldn't bother with - not the big things (like your major hobbie) which you actually can more than justify the time doing.
(QUOTE)Give up most of the time you spend on displacement: get a girlfriend, cook a new dish, walk in the countryside during the rain, interact with humanity a bit more, ditch those blogs you sad git. Just get off your fat ass, Jon and do something with your life.(QUOTE)
While I understand the girlfriend bit - lets be honest how are cooking and walking any better than watching television? Or is it just middle class snob factor? Those sound more intelligent?
Also there is the question of how you would describe success. Surely - the definition of success in life is contentment? I'd argue that those people who are comfortable with just enjoying their hobbies (whatever they maybe) and getting on with the other aspects as best they can - are far more successful in life than sad tossers who go on and on about how shite their life is (for whatever reason) and waste their time doing stuff they don't even enjoy because there is some sort of 'value' to what they are doing.
Do you know how many people have made any impact on history? And do you know how many of them made the impact because someone else lived their life telling everyone they could meet how great this other person was...
Well cooking a new dish means you've learnt something useful and walking is mildly good for you or so I've heard.
I think I should just explain that I wasn't trying to say that watching Who is a waste of time or that any of the other things i listed were more cultured passtimes. My main point was to say that some of us fans (me included) can lead incredibly unbalanced lives at times and ultimately that may prevent us from understanding the world around us or from interatcing with that world to the full.
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