All Passion Spent

Papa and I watched "All Passion Spent," a totally delightful, wry three-part series from British television. It was the story of a very elderly woman, her family and her life after the death of her husband.

You could call it a coming of age story for oldsters. It was a glorious portrayal of the entire landscape of old age- the adult children, society's expectations vs one's own, the value (and the capacity) of enjoying the moment. But most importantly, it portrayed life's enduring energy for growth and development, with or without impetuous passion.

One of the great benefits of our going on strike against Comcast and its neverending bill wars is that we have to be intentional about everything we watch. I had become conscious of our tendency to use TV as a drug at the tired end of the day. Cable television has too much "junk food" available for that appetite.

We are finding ourselves well sated by a nightly episode of some quality TV series which we have spent some energy selecting. We have further found that if we do not want to venture to the library or video purveyor for our evening's entertainment, we can download it from iTunes with absolutely no quarrelous expenditure of energy regarding the bill.

My prediction is that the internet will soon provide access to all of our video media desires, thus obviating the cable companies, which have bedeviled the bill payer in our house for years. The passion spent on these tricksters over the years has been considerable and detrimental, and I am glad to be done with it.