No Television

A reader, responding to my blog post on NPR, asked if I don’t watch WETA-TV (channel 26), the Washington D.C. public television station. The answer is no. For most of my adult life, I have avoided watching television. I don’t own a television set. I found that the time I spent on television was time wasted, but the major reason I avoid television is that I spend so much of my time reading and writing. I can (and occasionally do) watch a TV show via the internet. But for the most part, I’m content to do without.

I don’t miss it. I have a very full life. I now have well over a hundred book reviews in print. I have published six books and 17 short stories. And I regularly do four different presentations with slides. The most popular is the story of the fall of Saigon which I survived escaping under fire after the North Vietnamese invaders were already in the streets of the city. I’ve now done that presentation more than a hundred times, and I’m scheduled to do it again multiple times over the coming weeks and months.

 So I’m quite content to do without television. I suggest that my readers give it a try.