I turn on my TV and log onto Hulu- a college student’s modern day version of cable television. It still has Shark Tank playing from the night before. But before I can continue watching endless amount of hours staring at pixels on a screen an ad comes up, of course. Cable or no cable television you cant escape advertisements. Wiz Khalifa raps to me about Oreos. A lady grabs a giant red balloon and floats towards a new Mazda because what else would a car commercial be about? Shark Tank continues. The first entrepreneur walks out and pitches. She actually has a profitable business and the invertors start their bidding war. Just when things get interesting the screen cuts to a commercial for Havertys furniture. Cirque de Soleil performers jump around on my TV in colorful costumes doing all sorts of crazy acrobats. Shark Tank comes back on and the lady gets a deal. It’s a dream come true. I switch over to HBO to continue a show I’m watching. A list of warnings comes on the screen- nudity, violence, language, and adult content just to name a few. Immediately after there’s another warning saying viewer discretion advised. I don’t know to many things on TV without these warnings anymore. The “previously on” plays reminding me of what happened last incase I forgot, as if I haven’t just binged watched the last five episodes. I curl up in bed and get ready for another five episodes.
About a block away from house there’s a little patch of woods that fellow neighbor set up a little city of birdhouses. It’s a good place for when I want to escape from my screen staring. So its here I find myself trying to grasp and hold onto the last moments of summer. Its evening but the sun is still up so the air is still thick and hot. One of the first things I noticed when I moved to the east coast was the humidity. Coming from a place where the heat is dry I had never quite been able to “feel” the air before. The second thing I noticed having moved in late August, which it just so happens to be now, was the cicadas. And then just like now, all I could hear was the cicadas screaming their heads off. In fact, birdhouses and feeders surround me but all I can hear is the never-ending sound of the cicadas. It used to drive me nuts. The first month I lived in Virginia they kept me up at night cause they liked to sit in the tree outside my bedroom window. Now however, I barely notice them unless I’m trying to. I don’t know when the change occurred but now my brain tunes them out and they just sound like summer to me. Someone once told me they loved the cicadas because they were the sound of summer. At the time I just looked at them like they were crazy because they still sounded like they were screaming as if they got blended alive. However, now I actually get it and they were right. Summer wouldn’t be quite right without them. I’m staring at two little birds rustle around in the plants on the ground when something hits my shoulder. It’s a nutshell that a squirrel dropped from the tree above me. I start paying attention to the trees and realize that every minute there’s things falling from the trees all around me. Birds aren’t the only things that can squawk. Squirrels squawk to alert of a predator and do so surprisingly loud for such a small animal. I learned this a while back when one was doing so from one of these trees. They make a lot of other similar sounds related to birds as well. I feel the mosquitos starting to bite at my ankles. I return back to my land of screens where I can still hear the cicadas from my window but safe from being the prey of mosquitoes.
During each of these information hours I gathered a lot. I realized just how much of the same commercials I see even on a day-to-day basis. My hour watching TV was still pretty similar to McKibbens experienced he described in terms of advertisements. While I like my electronics I do also like to take time away from them and just be outside like I was in my other hour. However at the end of both hours I was bored towards the end. For myself and I imagine many more people I need to find the balance between the two.