Joy Theft

Nextdoor is a fun little app. I get to hear about porch pirates or car theft, or vandals in my neighborhood.

Tiktok is great, tons of little funny videos that make me smile, peppered with a few videos propogating lies or displaying things that upset me.

Facebook is uplifting, I see stories of friends and family, littered with ads and political arguments.

Watching the news is never uplifting at all, not even the human interest stories anymore.  It's all just source for memes.

So why do I expose my brain to these things when I first wake up? I mean I'm not even out of bed yet, my brain hasn't even fully charged its defenses against the lies of the day.  Walk right in folks, make yourselves at home.

You know people quote that "Joy comes in the morning" verse a lot.  Psalm 30:5

Usually its misquoted or misapplied in some way and so I've often counted that verse as being misrepresented by man.  There are a few verses in Scripture like that, where the popular slant of sermons of the day misuse a verse out of context.

Another one also concerns joy.  "Count it all joy, when you face trials of many kinds."

People misuse and misapply that one a lot.

You know what I realized today?  Two things.

1 - I have really discounted the value of Joy in my life.  Probably because I've not liked the way so many Christians apply the concept of Joy. 

2 - I have really not allowed my days to start off celebrating in the Joy of Christ.... instead I've started my days letting the enemy steal and devour my joy.

I wake up Monday morning thinking 'ugh, it's Monday, gotta go to work!'

God delights.

Nuff said about that. You might ask 'what does He delight in?'  All kinds of things, but take a moment to realize the God delights.  He gets delighted.

Is Joy constant happiness?  Not to me it isn't. I don't believe we need to be 100% perky and smiley all the time. In fact I've learned that's a recipe for disaster.

Neither do we need to be stoic and frowning all the time.

To me the Joy of Christ is very simply this - a sincere belief that what happens in this life, on this earth, can not rob from me a future filled with all the good things God intends for us.

Sometimes that thought, that belief, brings an ecstatic happiness to me and I have to smile and jump around. Other times it brings a calm.  During suffering it brings no smile but a solemn comfort that I'll get through whatever hard time is present before me, and saves me from ever having to ask 'why me God?' or 'God do you even exist?'

Each day I need to wake up, and recharge my reminders.  Each day I need to start by flooding myself with God's thoughts instead of the world's lies.  Then, once I've let that 'joy come in the morning' (to abuse a verse) then I may be able to stand amidst the world of lies and be a beacon of hope to others, showing them Christ's love.

They really won't know we are different if we're not allowing ourselves to be made different each day.

It also helps a ton with my attitude.

It is the underlying concrete foundation of my life.

We Broke TV

There's a documentary on Netflix called 'The Last Blockbuster'.  In it celebrities lament the loss of the social connection found in going to the video rental store.  I felt it was waxing poetic about a bygone era but one thing struck me.  The social experience of going to a physical location with someone, maybe a date or maybe your family.  Deciding together what to watch, getting it, and bringing it home, made an activity out of watching a movie.

We're de-socializing ourselves slowly.

13 years ago I 'cut the cord' of cable TV.  People started cutting the cord but I said to anyone who asked my advice, "as with all major shifts in technology, the only people who will profit are the early adopters, eventually tv will find a way to make you pay."

Today we don't have the 'network wars'.  ABC, CBS, NBC aren't all working hard to bring you a Fall lineup to get your ratings and viewership.  Instead we have:

Netflix - $15.99

Hulu - $11.99

Amazon - $8.25

Disney -$6.99

HBOMax - $14.99

AppleTV - $4.99 

Total = $63.20 p/month

All vying for your attention, hoping to hit the biggest new show.  Don't have Mandalorian, hey subscribe to Disney.  What?! The Snyder cut of Justice League is out! I just read it on Facebook!  Okay I'm subscribing to HBOmax!

Etc.  We don't call them 'channel's' any more we call them 'streaming services'.  They are on demand, and you don't need a Tivo.

New streaming services are popping up all the time. And when they do, they revoke the rights of their shows from each other.  You could be watching your favorite show, season 3 episode 5 and find out that in a few days if not today, your show is no longer available on Hulu.  You now have to subscribe to StarZ.. or whatever.

In the midst of all of this, there is no 1 place you can go to see what is available to watch.  You can't go into a video store and see the new releases on the screen.  

To compensate you have to pay attention to what's hot in the social networking discussions.  Our new Water Cooler talk happens via Twitter and Facebook.  If you're not on those, how are you going to know what show everyone is talking about?

You could subscribe to a service that tells you, I suppose.  There are a few of those. 

Don't want to pay $63.29 p/month, but don't want to install a Tivo?

You got Slingbox - $25 p/option or $50 for the whole magilla minus bonus packages.

Or Youtube TV - $50 p/month

Or keep your Dish Network - $64.99 for starters

or Cable TV - $84 for the basic package.

Want to watch Classic movies?  Good luck with anything streaming. You have to add TCM to your dish or cable for that, but then you'll need a Tivo.

We've made TV far too complicated and too costly.

And yet, we're watching more of it than we ever have, and I'l submit we're watching a lot more garbage than we ever have because we get fatigued from trying to find a good show and just give up and watch anything! Just for the love of Pete stop reading the guide and put something on?

"I can't, I have to google this on rotten tomatoes to find out if it's worth watching!"

"But you just binged watched the Muppet Show, how discerning are you with your time, really."

"Fair point, okay pressing play on Pig Pirates from Pluto"

....right now someone reading this is saying 'that sounds good, what service is that streaming on?'

(I made it up...geez I hope I made it up, if that exists I'll have to watch it!)

The family no longer gathers around the TV once a week to watch that show you all love. Little House on the Prairie would never get everyone in the family together.  Instead you watch what you want, and I'll stream what I want on whatever device, in my room.

Everyone with earpods in, no one hearing what the others are saying.

When you're together as a family around the TV you can talk about the issues, or make jokes, or help filter out the lies for your kids.

We're losing that.

Friday night Family Movie night remains a thing until your kids reach a certain age.  It's right around the time when their friends start having more of an impact in their lives... more of a voice. 

That is also around the time that youtube and tiktok take a larger role in their lives.  Your voice as a parent get drowned out sooner.

So exactly what is my complaint?

Is it that TV is too expensive? Shows are all in 1 place? The lack of social interaction?  Make up your mind man!

It's all of it.  If I could my tv would stream exactly 3 channels.

-24x7 Classic movies (anything predating 1972)

-Sports - NFL, MLB, NHL

-Newly released Films

I would have it pull in all the stuff from wherever, and only play on the 1 screen. It wouldn't play on demand, there'd be no pausing. We'd go back to fighting over which channel to watch, and we'd have to gather when the show we wanted to watch was coming on.

And if we missed it, we'd have to wait for it to come back around.

In between, we'd go outside and play, or do homework, read a book, talk, play a game or a puzzle.

People used to say 'don't let TV run your life.'  They were referring to the need to get back home by 8pm Sunday to catch X-files.

We used to GATHER in large groups to watch that show when it aired.  Yeah we had Tivo but seeing it live with others, all discovering it at the same time was fun.

Now... we declare certain hours to be 'tv watching time'.  And the tv is always there, ready for us, with whatever we want to watch so long as we're willing to pay for it.  And also ready with a bunch of other stuff, to keep us in front of it even when we know we should turn it off.

We've broken TV, and we're breaking ourselves.

So am I gonna go turn off my tv and unsubscribe?

Not likely. Every TV fast is shortlived with me.  I love TV. Okay I used to love TV, now it's sort of a love hate.

The one thing that is good from all this competition, is that the shows are improving dramatically. There are some really good shows out there.

At least I heard there were, on facebook.

I'll be darned if I can find them.  What channel are they on?  Oh I'm sorry.  What service are they on?  Oh!? I don't have that.  Is Falcon and the Winter Soldier good enough to warrant the $6.99 p/month? I'll go ahead and get the free trial and see.

.....didn't I read somewhere once that if you put $6.99 p/month in an investment you'd be a millionaire when you retire?  Is Disney+ considered and investment?