Bliss Bombs

I never watch TV. I don’t seem to have the time right now. But there’s this bizarre ritual I seem to follow when I mosey out onto the road, living out of hotels that smell like recycled air and old cigarettes.

It’s like watching a parade of American decay in high-definition on the abnormally large TV in my hotel room. Some shiny, happy family shoveling oversized portions of deep-fried, sugar laden whatever into their seemingly happy mouths. Bliss in the form of calorie bombs, chronic disease made normal, served up with a side of those ever present smiles. There’s an art to it, really—as someone who had an interest in direct response advertising since I was a kid, it shouts to me like a circus barker.

And before we wipe the saliva off our chins, here comes the cavalry—pharmaceutical ads. They’ve got a pill for everything, man. Can’t sleep? Pop a pill. Too sad? Here’s a pill for that too. Joints aching from lugging around that spare tire? The great people of this nation are being feasted on!  What a cash cow we have become!  It is NOT genius really, it’s a pathetically simple advertising strategy, all from the appeal to the lowest basest desire for pleasure and distraction, served with a ‘you deserve it’ underlying message.

It’s glaringly pathetic when you step back and really look at it. Maybe it’s because when you don’t usually watch TV, coming back to it is like visiting the circus. Everything’s amplified—the incessant but normalized drug ads and overly grotesque food that would make our Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers wonder if it was really, actual food that was on that TV screen.  We’ve mastered the art of making health destroying food normal and severing it completely from its direct need for drug therapy, even while the commercials are plastered together seamlessly right in front of our eyes.

And amidst all this high-octane marketing for stuff that’s killing us softly, the heart of this great nation knows it’s sick but can’t seem to stop gorging on the very things that are writing a sad epitaph of lost years and chronic health care bills that will bankrupt us, while making others millionaires.

God help us. Because while the TV keeps blaring, and the ads keep selling immediate pleasure dipped in sugar and medications, the real stories of health crises are unfolding off-screen. In homes where people are trying to piece together a healthier story amidst this circus, while being screamed at all the time the opposite message.

And maybe that’s the real reason why I steer clear of TV. Because when you really watch it, with eyes wide open, it’s a mirror reflecting something deeply disturbing—a portrait of a society gorging itself into the grave. And who wants to watch that reality show? Not me, friend. Not me. Instead, if we could rededicate ourselves to our local communities, build a movement reclaiming our health we could again inspire the world.