Nows and Forevers

I like to read. I would rather read, or listen to an audiobook, than watch TV. I don’t have anything against TV, per se. I like some shows, like “SportsNight” and “Star Trek” and “Lost,” and “Ted Lasso,” among others. And I spent about 10 years covering the TV industry, so I can honestly say that TV fed my family for a while. But I don’t automatically turn on the TV when I get home at night, as my stepfather did when I was a kid.

Take now: It’s a Sunday evening, primetime, and I’ve just gotten home from being out for a while. I’m alone in the house and the TV, which is about 5 feet away from me in the living room, facing me, is off. And I just noticed that.

Instead, I’m writing this blog post, listening to the birds chirp. I can’t say the last time I watched TV in the classic sense, via broadcast or cable. I do have NetFlix and AppleTV, and I could watch them. But I haven’t for a few days. It just doesn’t strike me as one of the things I want to spend my time on.

I’m sure there are things that I would be interested in watching. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is coming back for a second season in less than two weeks. I’m going to watch that, I think. I certainly want to. But then I realize that as big a Star Trek fan as I am, and I am, I haven’t watched the last season of “Star Trek: Discovery” and I watched only the first 5 minutes of this season of “Picard.” And I would want to watch both of them.

I’d much rather read. Or like I’ve been doing, write. Both make me happy.

It wasn’t always that way. I watched TV regularly as a kid, when MTV was still doing videos and The Weather Channel was new and fascinating, and CNN when there was big news. I tried to watch CNBC, given that I’ve spent half my career covering business. And I watched “Lost” when it was on, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” a few seasons of “The West Wing” and one of my favorite shows that you never see anymore, “Ed.” I’ve tried to keep up with the new round of Star Trek, but I guess I’m not any good with that. And I loved “The Good Place” and the early seasons of “Arrested Development.”

The golden age of television is apparently passing me by.

That’s OK. I have been trying to read more lately, after being sidelined by my amateur radio hobby and also, before that, learning to read and write Welsh. (For a whole year, I did nothing but read Welsh language books, which was fun and foreign, all at the same time.) But I’m feeling compelled to read and write, and I’m answering the call.