Flickering Lights

If you're like me, you wonder sometimes about caveman teenagers.

(What? I can't be the only one ... ?)

Anyway, sometimes when I find myself sitting in front of a television, I remember all of the childhood warnings about how it would ruin my life:

• It will ruin your eyes
• It will rot your brain
• If you sit too far away you will get headaches from squinting
• If you sit too close you will get radiation - and die.

Wow - why did we ever keep sitting in front of something that dangerous? OK, sometimes it's because there is something great on it - think Masterpiece Theater, or the first season of Cheers. Much more often, though, there is nothing great, nothing that absolutely compels us to watch - and still, we are often found in front of the 'idiot box' - and it's at times like that that I start thinking about the caveman teenagers.

I suspect that soon after cavepersons discovered fire the cave parents got annoyed by the endless hours that cave teens would sit staring at it. Why? Because we like watching things flicker - they get our attention. It's not accidental that police cars & fire trucks have lights that flash - it makes us look. So I picture the cave teens being huge fans of this new innovation (they are always the first to know that the next awesome thing is, indeed, awesome).

• You'll go blind if you stare at that fire all night
• Your brain will rot if you don't go to bed so you can be up early for some hunting and gathering
• You'll fall asleep and fall into that thing - and DIE!

For my generation, it was TV - currently it is a variety of screens - computers - DVD players IN CARS (!-my generation could only dream of some future time when such a wonder would be possible) - or 'phones' (a terribly inadequate word for what cell phone/home theaters have become). Sometimes we're staring at these things because they have great information or vital information - but often, I suspect, the hours disappear while we're basically watching the lights flicker.

Just something to think about the next time you find yourself still in front of the television after the good show ends - or when you're checking one more page on Facebook as rigor mortis sets in by way of your carpal tunnel. If you're just watching the flickering lights, give your eyes a rest, and switch your brain back on, and go take a walk.

[BTW - thanks for watching these particular lights flicker for a while].