Let It All Come In 4-15-10

Anderson, South Carolina

A great challenge of exercising in public gyms is the ubiquitous presence of televisions screens in lockers rooms, assorted group exercise rooms, and on fitness floors. Recently my gym installed flat screen televisions on virtually all treadmills, climbers and cross-trainers. It’s not possible to exercise without direct view of at least a dozen screens. Fortunately, machines I routinely use were never retro-fitted with video screens so I don’t have one eighteen inches in front of my face.

It’s become common for many members to insulate themselves from each other with ear buds plugged into these screens. Many more are isolating themselves with video streaming picked up from smart phones. Others not yet habituated to constant video input settle for various forms of audio input from IPODs and MP3 players.

Today while suiting up I noticed a rapid succession of faces come across the large screen above my locker, many of them rather sinister and aggressive. Curious, I stood still, waiting to see what the ad was about. It proved to be an advertisement from a large cable subscription service with only one phrase in the ad, “Let it all come in, call us.”

Incredulous, it occurred to me that millions of people actually pay substantial amounts to get a flood of non-stop serenity-robbing video input into their lives. They actually do “let it all come in.” A number of families I know have screens in every room of their houses, including the bathrooms. One arm-chair athlete admitted out loud that he spends $130 a month for cable just so he can see Monday Night Football. Others are spending $250 a month or more for a pallet of hundreds of premium channels. A family here in town has forgone access to hot water for showers for three years because paying for premium cable is more important that paying the natural gas bill. An eighty-five year old mother has long forgotten the pleasures of a warm shower. A recent estimate suggests more than 100 million Americans are paying for cable subscription services, to “let it all come in,” often to every room.

The large screen on the wall in front of my stair climber has split imaging video feed to it. I’m not able to turn this screen off. There are no less that six sources of information displayed at any one time, except when paid commercials are running. From the steps of the climber I can see three news feeds, a finance ticker tape, closed captioning from the main video feed, and at times three additional video inserts on the right side of the screen. Sometimes a stopwatch counter indicates hours, minutes, and seconds remaining until some noteworthy interview or event is expected to occur.

While climbing today, I learned from the main video feed that my travel plans next week face disruption because of a volcanic eruption taking place in Iceland beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier. The airports I want to use have been closed because dangerous clouds of powdered rock are wafting eleven miles up into the sky. How bizarre to learn that volcanic explosions might dump on my life, while in the local gym getting exercise. It is becoming progressively harder to be focused on one’s immediate place and experience, to be present to those people around me. How can I be listening to or encouraging those around me if they are insulated by their own video inputs and I am wondering if volcanic grit is going to destroy the jet turbines keeping me at 40,000 feet. Geologists indicate that volcanic plume is spewing ash up to 55,000 feet and that a far greater eruption from another nearby volcano is likely.

Some of the greatest wisdom in the great religious traditions speaks of the need to be still, to be quiet, to find peace by eliminating outside input. Masters of meditation have learned how to find ‘filling’ silence that allows them to attain serenity and mindfulness unachievable with any number of mood altering drugs. The anxiety and restlessness of an over-stimulated people is inconceivable to those few remaining cultures yet disconnected from the world’s video feed. For certain, I did not go to the Y today to explore the effects of putting powdered rock into the intakes of fan jets. I went to find a bit of equanimity and tranquility that comes from exercise-induced endorphins and pleasant community that derives from being with others who want to do the same thing.

Do we really want to submit to stressful commutes to go perform jobs that stress us even more just to make more money so that we can pay the cable company “To let it all come in” and wipe out any chance of getting a good night’s sleep?

For years I’ve been viewed as eccentric, because I don’t have any kind of television or cable service in my house. Every time I go to the gym, I am reminded that being eccentric can be a very good thing. A whole lot of lemmings have died because they followed the leader.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.