I Am Desensitized

I watch too much TV. Almost every night. The stories draw me in, and I’m lifted from my own problems and shortcomings. It’s easy to find characters I identify with or can root for. The setting becomes my reality for a series of episodes—some medieval realm or the grassy plains of untamed America. And it’s easy to think—I wish I could be there. Or what would my life look like if this was my reality? And I think how rosy life is on the big screen. My life just feels so dull in comparison. And I realize that when all my excitement and zest for life comes from a 42-minute television show, maybe there’s something wrong? My life’s not nearly as exciting or action-packed. Maybe my reality is just a little bit slower.

I think about people whose lives we look at as eccentric or moving in some revolutionary way. I figure it was probably a matter of one or two decisions or big moments in their lives that defined them. Maybe every day wasn’t plunged into chaos or some life or death-defying moment. I imagine if my life were like James Bond, I would have an aneurysm, and my body would be racked with pain.

My wife prefers tender TV shows. I wonder what that says about me. Hallmark just doesn’t do it for me. The plot lines are predictable before I even see the previews. A new girl moves to town to get her life back together. Meanwhile, the hardworking swoony bachelor has never found “the one.” Their paths cross, and it’s never going to work at first—until a Christmas miracle brings them in to close all the trouble in the world with a happily ever kiss. It makes me throw up in my throat. But it makes me wonder, do the shows I’m drawn to require a specific amount of bloodshed to stimulate my senses? Maybe I’m just jaded. Are my senses dulled? Not sure how I sunk this low in my taste for TV.

When I was ten, my friend Steven and I snuck into Saving Private Ryan. It’s not like we had much of a choice. Steven’s mom took us to the movies, and ours—some kid-friendly action movie—ended just as hers was starting. I figured we’d wait for her outside her theater for Saving Private Ryan to finish. I stood in the hallway, thinking I can’t go in there. It’s rated R. But Steven pulled me in when the theater staff was distracted. Just as American troops stepped out of Higgins boats onto Omaha beach, we climbed over the laps of adults to find two seats next to his mom. Landmines launched sand into the sky, and the rattle of machine gun fire streaked the beach. Steven passed the popcorn as an eighteen-year-old cried for “Mama!” as he pressed his intestines back into his stomach. It was horrific—scarring, perhaps. At ten years old, it didn’t make sense that this could be real. But it was. There was no glamour, no romance—just the senseless insertion of lead into each other to deal with things.

It was a Christian Ethics course in seminary. I was shooting the breeze before class, talking about life and hobbies with a classmate. I brought up the topic of TV shows. I don’t remember what TV show I mentioned, but it was a gruesome, gritty, and bleak murder mystery show—perfect for a Christian Ethics course, right? I remember asking her if she’d seen the show. And I’ll never forget the look on her face when she said,

“I can’t bear to watch those shows after my friend was murdered.”

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like Wile E. Coyote crushed under the weight of an anvil. It was crazy how numb and calloused I had become to seeing death on TV.

This character was killed off. This actor or actress no more had become commonplace. It’s wild when you stop and think—that this person, this character had a history, a family, memory, hopes, and dreams—worth.

Maybe the problem’s not just with TV—lately, I’ve been listening to a Podcast called Real Dictators that explores the secret lives of history’s most brutal tyrants—Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Kim Jung-ung (I guess I’m trying to learn what not to do). And I hear these statistics: forty million—twenty million—six million deaths. And it’s like life becomes but a number, just numbers . . . I can’t even make sense of it—can’t picture it. But when I came to understand that one of the forty million was Zhaou-ching, the soybean farmer, or one of the twenty million was Vladimir, the electrician, or one of the six million was Chaim, the clockmaker. There’s a name to the number, a face to the figure, and a person of worth to the stats.

Maybe the problem’s not just with TV or history—maybe it’s with me? I’ve become like a statistician, not a person, not a Christian. I’ve lost sight of worth, the worth that the world sees as seemingly worthless. But who’s really to say that our lives have worth? What gives our lives true worth?