Life can be a lonely, boring, and lackluster experience no matter how hard you try to go against the grains of time. Eventually those empty feelings of existence catch up with you and educate you in your absolute insignificance in the universe, because all this will one day fade away. The only thing that I can recommend in fighting the dying of the light is to not face it alone. A ritual I have learned to cherish when I first married my wife a little over two years ago was how to enjoy a night of sitting in, having a nice dinner, and watching a TV show we can both enjoy. The long conversation about the episode after it ends is also an important part of the ritual. Within all of this, I have found an experience that has become a life-giving, spiritual, burning passion at the center of all time before and after. The truth of life and love has been revealed to me in the 20-40 minutes of television plots and characters.
For all of my heady statements, I am simply trying to say that life is hard, and it’s easier when you have someone to watch TV with. Here, have this classic Friends moment to lighten the mood.
I can say as an American and an adult that TV is an integral, therapeutic, and cathartic part of our modern lives. All throughout the week, families and friends will converge together to bask in it's glow as it preaches the stories, lessons, and tales of our times. Perhaps the institution has been waning in the past few decades due to the advent of the internet, but many remember and respect the process that made television great. Only the good survived, and the best memorialized. The best television has something to offer, and the best shows knew how to deliver week after week, and year after year. That isn't to say there isn't anything bad on TV, in fact quite the opposite. Good is only what we sort of agree that TV should look and sound like. If something looks and sounds like a proper show, it's good enough to air. But this doesn't mean the show offers anything real, for example this clip of Big Bang Theory where the laugh track is missing and you realize that none of the jokes are real.
Now, this isn't to completely dismiss an entire show off of one example. Some shows are good consistently enough or have moments that make sitting through it worth your while. Some shows simply might appeal to person's specific tastes. But when you consider the vast majority of shows and type of shows that exist out there today, finding something that has something real to offer and true to life can be difficult sometimes. I know for my wife and I it's often down the middle. We'll find shows to watch where we might not always think the writing is the best, the acting could be better, or we think the show has stretched itself on for too long.
For example, my wife and I love "How I Met Your Mother", it's one of our favorite shows. It was one of those shows that had a really strong pilot and first few seasons that instantly hooked us, but the quality of the writing began to take a dip in it's latter half. But I'll never forget the episode "Symphony of Illumination" where one of the characters (spoiler alert), Robyn Scherbatsky receives heartbreaking news. In the episode, her doctor informs her that she'll never be able to have children, causing her to realize a huge part of her life has been closed off forever. At the time of seeing this episode, my wife was pregnant with our baby who was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a fatal chromosomal error that makes the likelihood of the baby's survival extremely small. My wife isn't usually the sentimental type, and perhaps it was the high emotions of being pregnant or all of the other crazy things going on in our lives, but I will never forget the way she cried for Robyn.
For example, my wife and I love "How I Met Your Mother", it's one of our favorite shows. It was one of those shows that had a really strong pilot and first few seasons that instantly hooked us, but the quality of the writing began to take a dip in it's latter half. But I'll never forget the episode "Symphony of Illumination" where one of the characters (spoiler alert), Robyn Scherbatsky receives heartbreaking news. In the episode, her doctor informs her that she'll never be able to have children, causing her to realize a huge part of her life has been closed off forever. At the time of seeing this episode, my wife was pregnant with our baby who was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a fatal chromosomal error that makes the likelihood of the baby's survival extremely small. My wife isn't usually the sentimental type, and perhaps it was the high emotions of being pregnant or all of the other crazy things going on in our lives, but I will never forget the way she cried for Robyn.
Being a married man, I can also tell you what you already know; marriage is not a constant romance. When I was younger, I used to cringe at the thought of staying in with someone instead of getting out into a sea of strangers. But now things are okay, because I learned that despite how unexciting spending the night in may sound, I’ve enjoyed every moment of it with the woman I love. Making dinner, choosing a show, and arguing about it as it plays are all steps in performing the ritual. But the true heart of it all is the conversation that occurs after the episode ends. If ever you meet someone where the conversation is a constant, loving, and giving experience, then you know you are taking part in the great illusion of life, love, and eternity. You have found something truly special that people spend years of their life and resources on; A show that you never want to end.
Despite all of this and my faith in the importance of our ritual, I can hear some of you groaning now at what sounds like the voice of absolute death. Life is not meant to be wasted at home, it’s about the experiences and stories you collect by getting out there into the world. Before I met Cathy, I tried to be that type of person; I would get out into the city almost every night with my friends. We’d just waste time going places, having drinks, meeting new people, and just trying to have fun. But I can tell you right now that that part of my life gave me nothing, and I had never felt more alone and empty then any other part of my life. While I don’t think a more active style of life is in general a bad thing, I think it needs to be specific to the type of person who derives meaning from it.
In my particular case, which is all I can speak for, I was not happy being alone. I look back at those times and saw what an unhappy person I was, even though I couldn't completely understand why it at that time. It wasn't that I was lacking in good friends, many of whom I still hold closely and dearly to my heart, but I’ve never had a better friend than the woman I am married to now. With her, I can explore and share every part of who I am as a person. There hasn’t been a single person who has been more open and caring then she has. I grew more as a person and an adult than with anyone else in my life.
TV is a great thing to talk about. This is because TV is about our everyday life, our problems, and it's about family and all of the forms it may come in. Think about when a show stops being interesting; why does that happen? It’s usually when the same ideas and concepts begin to be reused for a long string of episodes, or the show changes into a direction that simply doesn’t work. Some shows start off rough because they take time to truly understand what they need to be about. It’s really about a group of talented people getting together to find a story they need to tell. They often times jump the gun and get started, and shows can live or die from their decisions. Shows have their cycles of life, and the stories that often work the best are the ones that are the most true to real people despite how fantastic the setting may be. At the end of the day, you have a small chunk of time and a mix of different ideas and concepts that present themselves with an ideological stream of thought that is meant to influence you emotionally one way or another. Good shows will tell stories that offer catharsis to the audience, where they allow the people watching to momentarily reach into themselves emotionally and come to terms in some small or big way with something within themselves that was either hidden or forgotten. That is the true life blood of a show and the function of storytelling in general, and why TV is so important to our modern society- or, that is my argument at least when I'm with Cathy.
The time I spend talking to my wife about anything is the most important thing in the universe to me. In my eyes, life has no purpose, direction, or point. The universe is expanding, the sun is exploding, and the Earth is dying. We are all dying. When you realize this, you begin to see that the thing that gives you hope and a direction forward is seeing every moment and every relationship that you have as the center of the universe. My friends, family, and Cathy are my meaning in life, and they are the center of my universe. Although the seasons may come and go, I am always excited to see what happens next. This is my favorite show.
Despite all of this and my faith in the importance of our ritual, I can hear some of you groaning now at what sounds like the voice of absolute death. Life is not meant to be wasted at home, it’s about the experiences and stories you collect by getting out there into the world. Before I met Cathy, I tried to be that type of person; I would get out into the city almost every night with my friends. We’d just waste time going places, having drinks, meeting new people, and just trying to have fun. But I can tell you right now that that part of my life gave me nothing, and I had never felt more alone and empty then any other part of my life. While I don’t think a more active style of life is in general a bad thing, I think it needs to be specific to the type of person who derives meaning from it.
In my particular case, which is all I can speak for, I was not happy being alone. I look back at those times and saw what an unhappy person I was, even though I couldn't completely understand why it at that time. It wasn't that I was lacking in good friends, many of whom I still hold closely and dearly to my heart, but I’ve never had a better friend than the woman I am married to now. With her, I can explore and share every part of who I am as a person. There hasn’t been a single person who has been more open and caring then she has. I grew more as a person and an adult than with anyone else in my life.
TV is a great thing to talk about. This is because TV is about our everyday life, our problems, and it's about family and all of the forms it may come in. Think about when a show stops being interesting; why does that happen? It’s usually when the same ideas and concepts begin to be reused for a long string of episodes, or the show changes into a direction that simply doesn’t work. Some shows start off rough because they take time to truly understand what they need to be about. It’s really about a group of talented people getting together to find a story they need to tell. They often times jump the gun and get started, and shows can live or die from their decisions. Shows have their cycles of life, and the stories that often work the best are the ones that are the most true to real people despite how fantastic the setting may be. At the end of the day, you have a small chunk of time and a mix of different ideas and concepts that present themselves with an ideological stream of thought that is meant to influence you emotionally one way or another. Good shows will tell stories that offer catharsis to the audience, where they allow the people watching to momentarily reach into themselves emotionally and come to terms in some small or big way with something within themselves that was either hidden or forgotten. That is the true life blood of a show and the function of storytelling in general, and why TV is so important to our modern society- or, that is my argument at least when I'm with Cathy.
The time I spend talking to my wife about anything is the most important thing in the universe to me. In my eyes, life has no purpose, direction, or point. The universe is expanding, the sun is exploding, and the Earth is dying. We are all dying. When you realize this, you begin to see that the thing that gives you hope and a direction forward is seeing every moment and every relationship that you have as the center of the universe. My friends, family, and Cathy are my meaning in life, and they are the center of my universe. Although the seasons may come and go, I am always excited to see what happens next. This is my favorite show.
Rough Draft
This is Our Show
Life can be a lonely, boring, and lackluster experience no matter how hard you try to go against the grains of time. The only thing that I can recommend in fighting the dying of the light is to not face it alone. For all of my heady statements, I am simply trying to say that life is hard, and it’s easier when you have someone to watch TV with. I can say as an American and an adult that TV is an integral, therapeutic, and cathartic part of our modern lives. Being a married man, I can also tell you what you already know; marriage is not a constant romance. Some nights you’re going to stay in, have a nice dinner, argue about the different aspects of the TV show you’re watching, and go to bed. But that’s okay, and despite how unexciting that may sound, I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. That is the true heart of the ritual- the conversation that occurs. If ever you meet someone where the conversation is constant, loving, and giving, then you know you are taking part in the great illusion of life, love, and eternity. A show that you never want to end.
Just to be clear on how exactly the ritual goes down, it happens in the same basic way just about every time. I’ll leave for work, and Cathy my wife will either work on a home project or go to her own job. Usually I’ll pour a lot of energy into my job and Cathy is a champion of trying to tie our crazy home life together no matter how daunting it may be. Although things are not always the best at our home, any person who is as strong hearted as her should be commended. When we converge from our plans of the day and back to our lives together, we get to share all of the lessons, tales, and adventures we had when the other was gone. I’ll make dinner, and we’ll throw on some Netflix. Usually it’s a show that we settle on, as we actually have very different tastes in genre. After the episode(s) end, we’ll talk at lengths and make our opinions, which are also at opposition. Afterwards, it’s usually to bed.
I can hear some of you now, groaning at what sounds like absolute death. Life is not meant to be wasted at home, it’s about the experiences and stories you collect by getting out there into the world. In my eyes, both ways of life are valid, and at the same time invalid. Before I met Cathy, I tried to be that type of person; I would get out into the city almost every night with my friends. We’d just waste time going places, having drinks, meeting new people, and just trying to have fun. But I can tell you right now that that part of my life gave me nothing, and I had never felt more alone and empty then any other part of my life. While I don’t think a more active style of life is in general a bad thing, I think it needs to be specific to the type of person who derives meaning from it.
In my particular case, which is all I can speak for, I was not happy being alone. I look back at those times and saw what an unhappy person I was, even though I did not realize it at that time. Yes, I did have friends, many of whom I still hold closely and dearly to my heart, but I’ve never had a better friend than the woman I am married to now. Because with her, I can explore and share every part of who I am as a person. There hasn’t been a single person who has been more open and caring then she has. I grew more as a person and an adult than with anyone else in my life. And I attribute it back to trying to have a nice conversation after an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
TV is a great thing to talk about. This is because TV is about our everyday life. Think about when a show stops being interesting; why does that happen? It’s usually when the same ideas and concepts begin to be reused for a long string of episodes, or the show changes into a direction that simply doesn’t work. Some shows start off rough because they take time to truly understand what they need to be about. It’s really about a group of talented people getting together to find a story they need to tell. They often times jump the gun and get started, and shows can live or die from their decisions. Shows have their cycles of life, and the stories that often work the best are the ones that are the most true to real people despite how fantastic the setting may be. At the end of the day, you have 20-40 minutes of a mix of different ideas and concepts that present themselves with an ideological stream of thought that is meant to influence you emotionally one way or another. Which is mostly what my wife and I talk about.
The time I spend talking to my wife about anything is the most important thing in the universe to me. In my eyes, life has no purpose, direction, or point. The universe is expanding, the sun is exploding, and the Earth is dying. We are all dying. When you realize this, you begin to see that the thing that gives you hope and a direction forward is seeing every moment and every relationship that you have as the center of the universe. My friends, family, and Cathy are my meaning in life, and they are the center of my universe. Although the seasons may come and go, I am always excited to see what happens next. This is my favorite show.
This is Our Show
Life can be a lonely, boring, and lackluster experience no matter how hard you try to go against the grains of time. The only thing that I can recommend in fighting the dying of the light is to not face it alone. For all of my heady statements, I am simply trying to say that life is hard, and it’s easier when you have someone to watch TV with. I can say as an American and an adult that TV is an integral, therapeutic, and cathartic part of our modern lives. Being a married man, I can also tell you what you already know; marriage is not a constant romance. Some nights you’re going to stay in, have a nice dinner, argue about the different aspects of the TV show you’re watching, and go to bed. But that’s okay, and despite how unexciting that may sound, I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. That is the true heart of the ritual- the conversation that occurs. If ever you meet someone where the conversation is constant, loving, and giving, then you know you are taking part in the great illusion of life, love, and eternity. A show that you never want to end.
Just to be clear on how exactly the ritual goes down, it happens in the same basic way just about every time. I’ll leave for work, and Cathy my wife will either work on a home project or go to her own job. Usually I’ll pour a lot of energy into my job and Cathy is a champion of trying to tie our crazy home life together no matter how daunting it may be. Although things are not always the best at our home, any person who is as strong hearted as her should be commended. When we converge from our plans of the day and back to our lives together, we get to share all of the lessons, tales, and adventures we had when the other was gone. I’ll make dinner, and we’ll throw on some Netflix. Usually it’s a show that we settle on, as we actually have very different tastes in genre. After the episode(s) end, we’ll talk at lengths and make our opinions, which are also at opposition. Afterwards, it’s usually to bed.
I can hear some of you now, groaning at what sounds like absolute death. Life is not meant to be wasted at home, it’s about the experiences and stories you collect by getting out there into the world. In my eyes, both ways of life are valid, and at the same time invalid. Before I met Cathy, I tried to be that type of person; I would get out into the city almost every night with my friends. We’d just waste time going places, having drinks, meeting new people, and just trying to have fun. But I can tell you right now that that part of my life gave me nothing, and I had never felt more alone and empty then any other part of my life. While I don’t think a more active style of life is in general a bad thing, I think it needs to be specific to the type of person who derives meaning from it.
In my particular case, which is all I can speak for, I was not happy being alone. I look back at those times and saw what an unhappy person I was, even though I did not realize it at that time. Yes, I did have friends, many of whom I still hold closely and dearly to my heart, but I’ve never had a better friend than the woman I am married to now. Because with her, I can explore and share every part of who I am as a person. There hasn’t been a single person who has been more open and caring then she has. I grew more as a person and an adult than with anyone else in my life. And I attribute it back to trying to have a nice conversation after an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
TV is a great thing to talk about. This is because TV is about our everyday life. Think about when a show stops being interesting; why does that happen? It’s usually when the same ideas and concepts begin to be reused for a long string of episodes, or the show changes into a direction that simply doesn’t work. Some shows start off rough because they take time to truly understand what they need to be about. It’s really about a group of talented people getting together to find a story they need to tell. They often times jump the gun and get started, and shows can live or die from their decisions. Shows have their cycles of life, and the stories that often work the best are the ones that are the most true to real people despite how fantastic the setting may be. At the end of the day, you have 20-40 minutes of a mix of different ideas and concepts that present themselves with an ideological stream of thought that is meant to influence you emotionally one way or another. Which is mostly what my wife and I talk about.
The time I spend talking to my wife about anything is the most important thing in the universe to me. In my eyes, life has no purpose, direction, or point. The universe is expanding, the sun is exploding, and the Earth is dying. We are all dying. When you realize this, you begin to see that the thing that gives you hope and a direction forward is seeing every moment and every relationship that you have as the center of the universe. My friends, family, and Cathy are my meaning in life, and they are the center of my universe. Although the seasons may come and go, I am always excited to see what happens next. This is my favorite show.
Writing Project 1: Autoethnography
Background and Overview
So far in our course, you have started to see that you belong to a set of communities, and these communities—their rituals, practices, and various phenomena—are closely tied to your identity. This relationship naturally raises various questions: How do you experience your community? What communal rituals, practices, traditions, behaviors, and/or objects have influenced your understanding of your identity? What does it mean to define your identity through your relationship to these phenomena?
To explore these questions and others related to them, you will compose your first major writing assignment—an autoethnography. To write this autoethnography, you will select a specific habit, ritual, or behavior (what we are calling a “cultural phenomenon”) you practice and investigate it. Doing so will help you discover what this activity says about you, your personal experiences, and the ways those personal experiences connect to the experiences of others.
The autoethnography is both an easy and a difficult form of writing. It is easy because, we are writing about what we know: ourselves. It is difficult because we must communicate the significance of our experience to our audience, making a connection between our own experiences and those of our readers. We must confront the hard truth that an event is not significant just because “it happened to me.” The event must offer some take-away value, and the writer who writes about the event must be able to answer the question “so what?” The answer to this question is the primary insight of the autoethnography, or the ultimate point that you are trying to make. Autoethnographies are not just chronological narrations of events; they communicate the event’s meaning and leave readers with a dominant impression of what it might have been like to experience it themselves.
For example, you might explore
- your methods of transportation. Do you walk, ride a bike, drive, or take a train to work/school? Why? What might your routine say about your identity or culture?
- your preferences for certain types of food. What do your choices say about your beliefs?
- your reading habits. Do you read the newspaper over coffee? Do you read before bed? What do you read? Why? What might these habits convey about your age, class, or social group?
Requirements and Deliverables
1. In your essay, you should select one habit, ritual, practice, or behavior and reflect upon this “phenomenon,” articulating why and how it has been significant for you. How have you been shaped as a person within your larger community by this activity?
2. Whatever your topic habit, ritual, practice, or behavior, your essay should be informed by close observation and provide a level of detail through example, anecdote, and explanation, which enables a reader to relate to your understanding of the action and its significance. It should provide significant insight into what has made/makes you who you are by including detailed descriptions of places and events while explaining the significance of these events to the formation of your own beliefs and behaviors.
3. Your essay should be written with an audience in mind: it should be organized in such a way that a reader can follow your thinking and reasoning from paragraph to paragraph and within each paragraph. This organization should lead your reader to your primary insight or ultimate point in a clear manner; in other words, your primary insight should help structure your paper.
4. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least one multimodal element. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your autoethnography, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
5. Your completed essay should have a title and be at least 1200-1500 words in length.
Project Submission
- Rough Draft: Your rough draft will be submitted for peer review and to your e-portfolio.
- Revised Draft: Your revised draft should be uploaded to your e-portfolio.
Tips:
- Get started early.
- Review this week’s materials and discussions.
- Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.
Background and Overview
So far in our course, you have started to see that you belong to a set of communities, and these communities—their rituals, practices, and various phenomena—are closely tied to your identity. This relationship naturally raises various questions: How do you experience your community? What communal rituals, practices, traditions, behaviors, and/or objects have influenced your understanding of your identity? What does it mean to define your identity through your relationship to these phenomena?
To explore these questions and others related to them, you will compose your first major writing assignment—an autoethnography. To write this autoethnography, you will select a specific habit, ritual, or behavior (what we are calling a “cultural phenomenon”) you practice and investigate it. Doing so will help you discover what this activity says about you, your personal experiences, and the ways those personal experiences connect to the experiences of others.
The autoethnography is both an easy and a difficult form of writing. It is easy because, we are writing about what we know: ourselves. It is difficult because we must communicate the significance of our experience to our audience, making a connection between our own experiences and those of our readers. We must confront the hard truth that an event is not significant just because “it happened to me.” The event must offer some take-away value, and the writer who writes about the event must be able to answer the question “so what?” The answer to this question is the primary insight of the autoethnography, or the ultimate point that you are trying to make. Autoethnographies are not just chronological narrations of events; they communicate the event’s meaning and leave readers with a dominant impression of what it might have been like to experience it themselves.
For example, you might explore
- your methods of transportation. Do you walk, ride a bike, drive, or take a train to work/school? Why? What might your routine say about your identity or culture?
- your preferences for certain types of food. What do your choices say about your beliefs?
- your reading habits. Do you read the newspaper over coffee? Do you read before bed? What do you read? Why? What might these habits convey about your age, class, or social group?
Requirements and Deliverables
1. In your essay, you should select one habit, ritual, practice, or behavior and reflect upon this “phenomenon,” articulating why and how it has been significant for you. How have you been shaped as a person within your larger community by this activity?
2. Whatever your topic habit, ritual, practice, or behavior, your essay should be informed by close observation and provide a level of detail through example, anecdote, and explanation, which enables a reader to relate to your understanding of the action and its significance. It should provide significant insight into what has made/makes you who you are by including detailed descriptions of places and events while explaining the significance of these events to the formation of your own beliefs and behaviors.
3. Your essay should be written with an audience in mind: it should be organized in such a way that a reader can follow your thinking and reasoning from paragraph to paragraph and within each paragraph. This organization should lead your reader to your primary insight or ultimate point in a clear manner; in other words, your primary insight should help structure your paper.
4. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least one multimodal element. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your autoethnography, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
5. Your completed essay should have a title and be at least 1200-1500 words in length.
Project Submission
- Rough Draft: Your rough draft will be submitted for peer review and to your e-portfolio.
- Revised Draft: Your revised draft should be uploaded to your e-portfolio.
Tips:
- Get started early.
- Review this week’s materials and discussions.
- Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.