The great experiment

I am a hug fan of the “one year experiment” genre of books. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is probably my favorite, but I also like The Happiness Project and Not Buying It. I really want to read The Year of Living Biblically, too.

I always have vague plans to do something along these lines. Weight Watchers and the accompanying lifestyle changes would be a great match, but the process is too involved , too scary, and too non-linear (in my current case an upside down bell , but I’m back to working on it.)

When I moved recently, one of the things I took a look at is how I wanted my new life to look. With an extra two hours a day in my life (not commuting!) I thought about what I’d like to fill that time.

I also looked at my current commitments and realized that I was exhausted. I mean, really, really tired. I have this feeling I am doing everything except the things I want to do.

In the course of packing up the house I did my best to shed a few things. I purged the physical objects I could and made a few phone calls to get off some committees. And I decided not to replace those obligations with anything else for right now. I’d give it a year without joining any Salem groups or applying for any new shows and see what came out of it.

I also decided to not get television service.

This is a tough decision and I’m immediately going to caveat the heck out of. I am setting up my TV’s and I am putting a DVD player on each to watch movies and things from the library. My next consideration is whether I can survive on just that, or whether an antennae might be enough (If I could get OPB, ABC, and CBS, that might be enough.) If that isn’t enough, I may look into some of these streaming services I am always seeing. I was shocked to find out they aren’t free though (but $20 a month seems better than $60 a month.) If all those options don’t work, I’ll go back to Dish or something.

In the ten days since I’ve moved I’ve already noticed a difference. I play a lot more music or simply let the silence go. The extra hours I’ve spend putting rooms together doesn’t seem like a chore, it just seems to be filling the time.

I’m hoping to get my studio room up and running within the next week; I’m then hoping that this no-TV thing might translate into more painting. 2015 was not a good year for painting (at least quantity-wise) and I’d like to make some strides in 2016. But I need some more time to get that done.

Will no TV be the answer?

We’ll see.