Charles Darwin, Father of Evolution, deduced that humans have been evolving for millions of years by means of survival of the fittest and natural selection. From the Cro-Magnon man with a club, to the CEO on vacation with Club Med, and from pre-historic tools, to the hand-held remote, we descended from a monkey and slowly evolved into intellectual bipedal human couch potatoes. Where are we headed in the next million years? Who cares, as long as the head rests have built-in tv’s. Set this brain-plane on auto-pilot.
Not too long ago, we veered off the Historic Highway at an Evolutionary Rest Stop to take a whiz that we had been holding back for like the last ten thousand rest stops. Meanwhile, our bladders are evolving into 64oz Big Gulp holders and we can’t manage to navigate our way around a 700 square foot resting complex without a “you are here” arrow. We need to get back on the road pretty soon before we get passed up by the Ford Tortoise because me thinks we are getting dumber.
Past civilizations saw the invention of the wheel, while our civilization is watching Wheel of Fortune.
“I’d like to buy two vowels: an I and a Q please.”
My TiVo started secretly recording episodes of BookTV for me while I wasn’t home because it thought my vocabulary needed more…how you say…wordiness. But I’m like “Hey, I don’t want a high IQ, I want a Hi-Def TV!” Was that a haiku? I digress.
Wheel of Fortune was actually the first syndicated show to broadcast in high-definition, which just proves we watch too much television. If we need to watch a game show, on a TV so vivid that the Roadrunner cloud will actually set off the smoke detector (Beep!!!Beep!!!) in the next room, it’s time to flip it off, literally and figuratively.
In 200 BTV (before television), I can only guess that life was more like, well…reality TV. I just imagine our ancestors coming over to America on boats while Joe Rogan is asking them “So what’s it going to take for you to eat this thing, dude? You still look pretty hungry from the potato famine.”
I think our wheel in society has started rolling down hill and some will stop it before it gets too far, others will jump in and run in circles, while others are asleep at it all together.
My whole point is this, we need to get a little smarter than a fifth grader and we need to do it now!
“Okay Pat, I’d like to solve the puzzle!”
Just watch less TV and pick up a book. Take your opposable thumb outta your tookus and flip a page, not a channel. Now gimmee back my Darwinian-Pop-Up-Book of Evolution and prescription 3-D reading glasses.
However, reading has a downside. I recently met a very smart Asian girl who was reading a book called Egg Drop Soup for the Soul of Humpty Dumpty in the self-help section of the book store where I buy my books-on-tape and she told me that I should join her book club.
The Cliff’s Notes story is that two hours before the book club meeting, I am sitting in a darkened movie theater with my book, while my laser pointer whizzes across the screen because the entire film was sub-titled! I’m just lucky some people were reading them aloud.
I can barely read the instructions on the back of a TV dinner without cracking open a dictionary. I would like to see a high-definition TV dinner for those of us with big appetites and smaller than average dictions.
But the truth is, is that TV is not the reason for stupid people, because stupid people exist where TV does not.
Animal rights activists in Australia wanted to have a monkey legally declared the status of a person. According to these people, the monkey should have civil rights. 200 million years of evolution only to find out that a monkey is a person, too! If you agree with these people, the only difference between a chimp and a chump is “you”, my friend.
…then again how stupid do you have to be to not have a TV? I have seben…I mean, seven.
On the other hand, maybe we should embrace this social brain fart and replace The Thinker with…the Statue of Limitations. That’s in the Museum of Modern Art, right?
I’m thinking Arby’s.