Unfinished Business

I wrote this post for a prompt given during our local Indieweb club meeting. The prompt was: “Write something about media you consumed recently”.

I’ve been watching TV shows for a long time, as some of you may have been as well. A perk of being old is that when you accumulate a lot of experiences and memories, you start noticing patterns when reflecting on them.

I’ve noticed this one thing for a long time, but only recently I’ve spent time thinking about it. I have many TV shows that I started watching, but never finished. And I’m not talking about the bad ones here. These shows are good, some even considered absolutely fantastic, but I was never able to finish them.

This happens more often with me than you’d imagine. I start a new show with great reviews. I watch a few episodes and I love it. I keep binging for a while. Then, right before the climax starts building up, I stop.

I have noticed that this happens when the shows have high emotional content: when the world is at stake, or when the hero’s life or loved ones are in danger, or there is a loving relationship on the line.

For a long time, I’ve tried to not watch highly emotional shows. The emotions could be any. I don’t watch horror because, frankly, it scares the shit out of me. I don’t watch romance because I get sentimental for days. I don’t even watch action-thrillers because sometimes the thrill is too much for me. I tend to stick to light-hearted easy-breezy shows, the ones that don’t put much at stake. I like to watch reality TV for this reason, or a nature documentary, or even a lecture series. But I’m realizing that this is not a great way to live. Sometimes I need to venture out into more troublesome waters.

As to why I should do it, I think oftentimes great cinema comes from the rawness of emotions. It is hard for me to sit through a finale episode, but if I do, it may leave me feeling delighted—or devastated—for days, even weeks. And I think that I must go through them, to understand the world and the people, and to become a more complete person myself.

Although I’ve never been formally diagnosed for it, I think that I have terrible¹ emotional regulation. My co-watchers are often annoyed by how much I interrupt them. Now, why I am like that, I don’t have a good answer to. Something to do with my childhood I suppose.

As a I grow older, I have taken to come back to all those old shows that I never finished. Now I watch them slowly, taking moments to digest my feelings and emotions. I guess it also brings some sort of closure and a feeling of emotional growth to me.

So here’s to all the hard work done by the creators of the great television shows that have upset me in the past. I hope that I’ll be robust enough, and finally finish that finale.

Like, share, or comment on this post on Mastodon.