Tuning in, or out.


Addams Family or The Muensters?
Carol Burnett Show or Laugh-In?
Flintstones or The Jetsons?
The Monkeys or The Partridge Family?
The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents?
Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?
The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie?

Lots of things go sweeping through my mind when I think of such things. First and foremost, you have to be a certain age to understand the most of this. Oh, the TV of yesteryear. We only had three channels, but the wholesome goodness of the choices seemed endless.

How did we come to this, where now, we have 5,983 channels, at least, and sometimes it feels like a struggle to find something decent to watch? Are we more complex these days? Or inundated with so much stimuli that we are simply harder to please? Regardless of what the reasons may be, it happened. We shifted. It used to b e simpler then. Mrs. Kravitz doesn’t come knocking on the door, seeking the fourth cup of sugar just this week. And Wilma just found out that Fred went bowling instead of fixing the leaky Brontosaurus sink.

I remember watching episodes of Get Smart, Johnny Quest, and Speed Racer. And in each, the star of the show had a nifty Spy Watch, that allowed them to see a little TV screen, or talk to someone on the other end. It was the thing of Fiction Legends. We used to borrow Dad’s broken watches and pretend we were the Techno-Giants. And today, I wear a watch on my wrist that lets me answer phone calls, send text messages and email, check the weather, see my schedule, and track my heart rate. Among other things. It all evolved from make-believe to the believable.

That’s the point. Really. The things we don’t understand today, or think are complete fiction — much too incredible to be true — may turn out to be a reality in the very near future. It all could be just around the corner. Like. The earth is round.

And back to the matter of choices. We have the ability to choose. In all things. Heaven knows, we make a gazillion choices each day. Some, bigger than others. Butter on my bagel, or cream cheese? Buy that new house or keep the one we have?

Essentially, most any choice has at least two options. Each side of that has pros and cons associated with it. And from there, we simply decide. Sometimes, it works. And other times. Well. We’ve all made bad choices.

But, if we are smart, we learn from the past. We can see what we have done, what worked, and what didn’t. The past can teach us a lot, if we look and learn.

It can also bring us many moments of wonder and magic. Like that Jeannie in the bottle. Open the bottle and look inside. Believe in the possibilities. You never know what might be true.

Just ask Cousin It who was bald as a ping pong ball when he was born.

 


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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both… — Robert Frost

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“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

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“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams

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