For some time now, I have resisted being entertained. There are many exceptions of course, but being entertained has somehow seemed to me an excuse for not doing something real.
Entertainment has seemed to me to be an escape from reality, or at least an illusory way of dealing with it. I have sometimes wanted to be relieved of reality, and for that reason I found ways to be entertained. I am easily distracted by the shiny objects of the entertainment world. I am very familiar with entertainment and use it, even while I may resist it.
I know that my primary entertainment room has been my mind. So many times I have stood on the curb of reality, and in my mind watched the parade of jugglers, acrobats and sword-swallowers passing by. Those have been the times that my body has been in one place, and my mind has gone off to be absorbed in something somewhere else altogether.
In my culture, I am very familiar with references to the entertainment room present in many homes. These are designated places I am invited to go in order to step outside of the reality of ordinary living. I am so easily entertained by images projected on a screen not so much to communicate but to create and invite me into an imaginary experience of escape. I sometimes go there.
I know very well how I can select a drama or an adventure and for 40 minutes or three hours I am apart from my body and think I am experiencing a reality not truly my own.
I am amused when I hear the expression of “entertaining friends,” when someone speaks of others coming to their home to visit. It seems that the expectation is not just that they will have an experience of interacting with one another. It seems instead that the host will skillfully lead their visitors out of their ordinary but real experience. The visitors will be entertained. They will have a good time.
Perhaps my resistance to the idea of being entertained is all dreamed up and is unfounded. As I look around, entertainment is such a firm part of the culture. But there is something fundamental that bothers me about entertainment.
I think I would prefer to be engaged with my common and ordinary world where things are real, not imagined or concocted for my entertainment. Not preferring escape, I like the presence of what I can truly see and touch. I prefer experience and I like to be amazed by the real movement of life.
I like to experience music played by others and the joy I have in hearing it. I am not so interested in a music performance put on so that I can be entertained.