Humor

My Ardent Affair

with Netflix

Bills to pay friends to call, but I don’t really care at all — ’cause another season of Ozark calls!

Engagement to plan homework to do, but I’ll just pretend I have the flu, so I can watch another episode (or two)

Meetings to attend presentations to create, but there’s a much more pressing date: binge-watching Netflix (oh-so-late)

Meals to cook people to see is someone proposing on bended knee? Hold that thought — I’m watching D.P.

House on fire? just hit in the face? such a terribly sad case… so sorry I can’t help — I’m devouring The Good Place

Life on the line? only months left living able? (makes me think of watching The Final Table)

This love affair runs deep of screening the lives of husbands and wives filled with guns and knives

An ardent affair (one-sided I know…) stealing hours and days that do just…go the desire to stop oh so low

Oh Netflix, my lover my fantasy, my pleasure you harbinger of leisure, you thief of time measure

I bid you adieu, so that I may be a storyteller who’s free to design a (REAL) life for me

Netflix is visual crack for me. It feels so good sitting on that couch, losing yourself to people and places that have nothing to do with real life.

And there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the plot of other people’s (often fictitious) lives…IF we can find the self-control to turn it off.

If we can’t…minutes turn to hours…days turn to night….and we find ourselves asking:

Where did the time go?

We know the answer: Netflix can become a time thief if we allow it.

The other night, I was an addict, telling myself the usual lies:

“Just one more episode.”

Three episodes later…I felt awful. I’d given away my power to the Visual Las Vegas that is Netflix.

Like a lover, I ached for Him. Just another episode…the craving to hear and see the next episode morphing into the next season…

Today, I avoid Netflix like an alcoholic avoiding a bar. I will NOT pick up that remote today; I will NOT wait to hear the family bah-bah of the red Media Magician.

Of course I want to turn myself on by tuning into the ever-streaming material on Netflix. But I know that doing so will tune me out from life.

Some people can have a mini-romp with Netflix. They can pick up that remote and put it down like breath — easy, effortless.

For others, like me, Netflix is a gateway to a torrid affair, stealing my energy, my life force, living a facade of a life, just aching to return to the couch…to the latest new show…and the next…