A new movie was released last week. The Martian is the new Ridley Scott film based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir.
All four of my friends said that they were either going to see it or, indeed, have been to see it. All of those that have seen it said that it was brilliant and stands up on its own as a great movie. I’m an avid movie fan, I love film and I love the fact that a lot of the stuffΒ I’ve digested over the years have been adaptations of great books. The fact that I’ve not read all of those books has little bearing on my overall enjoyment of these films.
HOWEVER!
As I become older I’ve started to realise that the convenience of watching a movie has diluted these great books. A book that can take days to read, all wrapped up neatly in a two hour popcorn fuelled experience, probably isn’t really what the author envisaged as he sat at his typewriter for months. So on this occasion I went out and bought myself a copy of The Martian, this time I was going to read first and view later! I enjoy reading books, especially those that are well written and researched. The trouble is I’ve been so convinced that the movie version will suffice, I’ve made it difficult for myself to make the time to hide away for a couple of hours and just read. I find that I’m either unable to concentrate and or I start to fall asleep, even in the middle of the day?
Something clearly had to change. The last book I read cover to cover was a small paperback about how to be a social media rock-star. It was a full 180 pages and it took me about two hours. The thing is I really enjoyed reading it, I was learning something that was relevant to what I’m doing at the moment. So having thought about the way that I sped through that book, I’ve decided that I need to find relevance on the pages that I’m reading now. By doing this I’ve started to overcome the concentration issues and have begun to apply elements of what I’m reading to my own world view.Β It’s a bit of a weird way of reading a book but I’m now fully engaged and able to stay awake.
Being the TV addict that I am, I consume upwards of four hours of TV shows per day. At the weekend I usually take in a film or two, so another four hours. Add it all up and I’m spending about 32 hours per week watching TV & film! Clearly this is too much and so I’m in the process of working out which shows I can live without and have made the decision to watch just one movie per week. I would like to reduce the TV consumption by two thirds and use the hours that I get back for reading, writing and exercise. Just to illustrate the severity of my TV addiction I will now give you a list of TV shows that I try to watch each week, along with a revised list for comparison.
MY FAVOURITE TV SHOWS
MY EDITED TV SHOW VIEWING LIST
So as you can see from the list above I’ve managed to reduce my TV viewing to a sensible level. One of the daily hours that I save will be turned over to reading, my goal to complete a book per week as a minimum and become a bookworm. As for the other time saved, I’ll be putting it to good use by writing, exercising, listening to music and doing some art related activities. Anything leftover will be family time.
P.S. I think I’m a bit of a science fiction nut!
Z