PONTIFICATION

 

Here is one of my often repeated (to myself) pontifications: “Entertainment and entertainers are a waste of my time."

I am a person.

A person differs from other beings by having a spiritual intellect.

I fulfill my nature as a person to the degree that I use my intellect.
For obvious reasons the first (or main) use of my intellect is to help me to survive. Thereafter, 'areas' of my life that maximize the use of my intellect would be the most desirable areas.

Is ‘entertainment’ such an area?

Definitions of ‘entertainment' are numerous and diverse. No matter what the definitions are, if I keep to my 'maximizing the use of my intellect’ point of view, a choice is possible.
Ex.: Watching a game of chess is better than
watching a game of hockey.
- Writing a novel is better than reading one.
- Writing a song is better than singing or listening to one.
Etc. etc

If I want to call work, entertainment ( it might be for some), then mindless work is the least desirable.

One certainly has to take a break from ‘directed thinking’, like:
a) Seeing the world, nature, with the ‘heart’, letting thoughts go by.
b) Watching entertainment that requires little concentration (or thinking). Ex.: musical entertainment, etc.
c) A break could also be had by directing my thinking to a new subject.
d) Directed thinking that involves physical exercise. Ex.: any physical sport.
Irrelevant to my point here (as it would take me too far) is the pertinent question:” Has all ‘directed thinking” the same value?

Do I know why I believe what I believe? To the degree that I know, I’m a thinker and as thinking differentiates me as a human, I’m therefore to that same degree more human.
However, only if I believe that my spirit is an advance, a progress on my mineral, vegetable, animal constituents of my being, only then can I find normal and desirable a further progress in the direction of maximized intellect.
So then, entertainment is not my ‘beef’, but minimal thinking is.

The ‘breaks’ in my life (this is where entertainment comes in) should not take the greatest part of my life.
The ‘breaks’ with the most ‘thinking’ have more value.
So because I think that some entertainment have minimum thinking value, does not permit me to say that all entertainment is undesirable or a waste of time.
What I should have thought is that excessive minimal thinking in one’s life is not desirable.

Does anybody care?
 
Obviously, every one of the points I made here could be analyzed and expanded at great length …not today.