Zen & The Art of Not Watching Tiger King
I will not watch Tiger King. I refuse.
For one, as an avid non-watcher of Game of Thrones, I’ve a contrarian streak on the line that I am unwilling to compromise. Not watching said show, which I’m told is about incestuous dragons or something, has become a part of my identity in a way. If the American model for baseline conversation is an innate competition for how much TV we consume, then I’d like to lose. Every time.
I’m a hit at parties, as you can imagine:
“Oh, remember that time, on Game of Thrones, when Cersei and John Snow slayed the Wicked Witch of Mordor and then walked in on Dumbledore and Snape in bed together? You do watch the show, right?”
I’d slowly sip my vodka. “Nope”.
Two blinks and a vacuous stare later, they’d counter. “What do you watch?”
“Um, 60 Minutes and Real Time, sometimes”.
“OK, but what about Tiger King…”
No, I will NOT watch Tiger King. For another, I’ve no interest in watching reality television at all for fear that the star might become President one day. Call it a form of PTSD. Knowing what I know about Joe Exotic and knowing what I know about the current standard for the office, I see a South Lawn grazed on by Shere Khan as a mind-numbingly distinct possibility.
These are superseded, however, by the real reason I won’t watch the show: my time on this earth, like yours, is short and my evenings, post-putting the kids to bed, shorter. If I’m lucky, I’ve about two hours to myself before I conk out.
With time being our most precious commodity, I’m of the opinion that proper allocation of said asset is of paramount consequence and the most worthy cause we can apply ourselves to. After all, how can we enjoy the moments we hold most dear if we don’t first set straight their primary provider, that is to say, the mindful, and not mindless, use of time?
And so, some non-Tiger King activities I do to fill my time in those two short hours during which it is my own:
Meditation Be it the breath-focused, cross-legged variety or, just as likely, the Mr. Miyagi “Wax On/Wax Off” approach. As for the latter, you can now find me cleaning the inevitable spray of lint about my dryer, nightly. This used to be a job for Merry Maids and one that I never thought twice about, and yet, now that we can’t have Merry Maids I spend my nights fastidiously cleaning the dryer to the point where I feel a sense of accomplishment. Each evening ends with it spotless. Each evening begins with it covered in soot again, seemingly the same as the night before, but different. Every night a chance once more to ponder the glacial impermanence of things…through the Pollack-like splash of microscopic lint on my dryer.
Sometimes, I even wear a headband emboldened with a Rising Sun just to get myself in the mood.
Travel Yes! It can still happen these days; and dare I say it just may be a better use of the screen up above that mantelpiece than watching the news? Thanks to SmartTVs and YouTube, if we’re so fortunate to have them, we’re given a window into a world that we can no longer see for ourselves. Train rides through the Swiss Alps, walking the winding alleyways of Venice, an 8-hour eagle-eye view of Iceland; endless wormholes are available for us to escape into and scratch that travel itch. The other day I picked up some sushi , switched on a Kyoto walking tour in 4K resolution and threw on some J-Pop. A near complete experience as my wife, understandably so, declined to dress as a Geisha.
Conversation Catching up with a friend or family member using sound, a phonetical process whereby words emanate from our mouths and are, in turn, comprehended and reciprocated by another person. Talking, past generations have been known to call it. Nowadays this is done even more effectively through video chatting, which more closely approximates the actual in-person experience by letting each participant judge the other mercilessly for their looks, expressions and now, living room decor.
Reading The Luddite, physical-page-turning kind as I could use one more screen to stare at like I could use a dose of lemonade eye drops. Always a fiction book in the rotation; and one non-fiction, biographical often. Perhaps one about Luddites.
Silence I take some time to quiet the mind and contemplate the future, be it ten minutes from now or ten years. An hour… a day… a month and think about how to live with more equanimity for myself and for others around me. I scheme, that is to say, I plan but with bigger ideas in mind. I start big and chisel away until something pragmatic is arrived at. One could “reach for the stars”, but our arms aren’t four light years long. Reaching for a leaf, though? I could collect a lot of leaves and make myself a comfortable bed, in the end, to lie in.
Those are the things I do instead of watching Tiger King. They are refreshing and reflective and soulful and satisfying. They bring me inner peace.
And then, after a half hour passes and I get sick of doing all of that, I proceed to spend the next hour and a half buried deep in my iPhone, buying needless stuff on Amazon and endlessly scrolling Facebook and Instagram, stalking your photos while polluting the couch with Frito crumbs.
But never Tiger King.
