Voids

At certain ages and times we come face to face with what is or isn't in our lives.  One of my offspring in a time thankfully gone by, had to have every moment filled with something or a blank moment would bore her to tears or worse - the terrible "I'm so bored" utterance.  I would suggest that she listen to music or the radio - generally -  perhaps or (gasp!) read a book.  If you have had a teenager it is a pretty good bet you've seen the same look at such a suggestion.

In the recent Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) debate and its spillover to Public Radio (NPR) the issues really boiled down to voids.  The opinion afloat is that voids are what dictate societal policy.  Think of it this way:  we have, each of us, just so much time not consumed by work and taking care of things that have to be taken care of.  This is our discretionary time.  A lot of it is filled by habits such as reading the paper or the morning walk.  Some of it is filling in time between choices; the end of the church service and the afternoon round of golf.  Television fills voids and the mindless aspect to much of it comes because in the main you need to watch it as well as listen to it for it to make any sense whatsoever.  It occupies enough of your senses that you can pass from chosen event to chosen event and not be totally bored by the void.

In the 50s, when radio was what it once was, the family would gather around it to listen to Ozzie and Harriet and watch each other enjoy it.  The visual in radio was partly the "mind's eye" of the scene and the other was my mom and dad exchanging a knowing wink.  The more engaging the program the more the imagination ran wild and perhaps the more inside exchanges passed.  These voids, the after Sunday dinner until bedtime, were filled by something that was, as a family - a little society - collectively worthwhile.  It was as if our little village voted and some void filling block was pushed into the slot.  Enough people filled that 7pm void with Ozzie and Harriet so to keep it on the air.

Getting back to NPR, it appears that some folks just don't want to spend the money while others just don't like the content.  That's fine; its a free country.  A lot of people do like it however and use these offerings to fill voids. For many, these discretionary void filling blocks fit into the flow of personal time and fit in nicely. Other's simply chose different blocks and, again, to each his own.

The richness of a society, from family to village to nation rests not in the daily life planned events but in the diverse offerings and choices to fill our voids.  When viewed this way, a lot of life's tensions and choices can be explained from why people live where they do, retire to where they are comfortable and live the lives they have.  I prefer a life with a lot of void filling blocks to chose from.

Isn't richness measured by having more?