Love Island ends tonight. I know literally nothing about it, although I am guessing it is a cross between Big Brother and Blind Date with added shagging. If I am wrong, please do not bother to correct me.
The older I get the more I wonder if I should be watching so much TV. Granted, there’s not THAT much to do of an evening when the working or non working day is done and I certainly do watch telly when I run out of ideas. I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason.
I have visions of lying on my death bed regretting the many years I probably spent watching repeats of Highway to Heaven, especially when I worked out long ago that Heaven is neither a place on earth, as Belinda Carlisle so cleverly put it, nor a place beyond the clouds. My last few moments could well be spent wondering why I got so stressed watching some Mickey Mouse football match when I could have been doing something else.
I include all sorts of things as that magical “something else”. I like to write stuff, even though very few people choose to read it and I like to read stuff by people who almost invariably write stuff better than I ever could. I might choose instead to go for a walk to clear my head or, God forbid, actually speak to a member of the family. Or smooth the cat. Anything has to be better than Love Island, right? Life is already short enough, isn’t it, without wasting large chunks of it watching Piers Morgan over breakfast (well, anytime, actually) or a repeat of Mr and Mrs?
In a way, I seem to be suggesting there is some great purpose to our lives, that it has some kind of meaning, that there’s a reason for everything. Er…no. There is one reason we are here and that is to procreate. We are here by virtue of the accident of our birth, in the face of insurmountable odds, and for no other reason. The imaginary God character didn’t create us and then devise some elaborate path for us to walk down. We’re the ones who made it. And we made it to watch the One Show and Britain’s Got Talent.
So a 180 degree turn could be appropriate. If I think something is more valuable to my life than watching Antiques Roadshow, then that won’t be the same for someone who sets their clock by it. If I read a good book instead of Hello!, that doesn’t make me better and it doesn’t mean I’ve spent my time better. Except to me it does.
Love Island is dead, long live Love Island. It might be shit, but then I think Shakespeare is shit so what do I know?
