Life Without TV

Right after the New Year`s vacation we turned off the TV and put it in the kitchen next to the freezer. Although this extra and out of place device has filled the capacity of our small kitchen, once in a while we have the chance to look instead at a bouquet of flowers in its original place.

Of course, this is not an everlasting decision and we did it temporarily with the agreement of all the family members. And the main reason for this is not at all political. The truth is that my second son, Amin, is in the last year of high school and is trying to get into a university, inshallah. So, after a lot of consideration we came to the conclusion that the most intrusive interruption for studying was this "magic box." Therefore, we divorced ourselves from it for a couple of months to see what would happen. (I should mention that my little daughter sometimes takes an extension cord to the kitchen and watches a couple of programs in the afternoon.)

However, the most interesting point is the result of this decision. Believe me, all of us feel calm and peaceful, much more than we ever did before. Neither will the over-hyped films walk across our nerves, nor will the violent scenes of other movies bring us nightmares, and we will not be obliged to give a reply, either mumbling or loud, to their one sided news and supposedly enlightening opinions, and we would certainly not be informed of the trashy news about increasing explorations of all matter of gadgetry and faked “genuine” pretenders who everyday in a corner fool the radio and TV journalists.

Even though this peaceful situation will soon finish and would not last much longer, I can say sincerely that life without TV is a joyful life. You should try it once, even if it is for a few days. Try it and see how your time increases and how you will spend more time with your family, finding new topics to discuss, not to mention the peaceful calm sleep you will have.

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[Translated from the Persian weblog of Dr. Ahmad Shirzad, Professor of Physics in Sharif University in Tehran and former Member of Iranian Parliament from Esfahan, who decided with his family to turn off the TV two months ago, at the end of this year`s Nowruz holiday season.] (http://shirzad.ir/cgi-bin/mtcgi/mt-tb.cgi/122)