I once came across a line by Groucho Marx that has stayed with me:
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
I smiled when I first read it. Years later, I understood why.
I enjoy movies. I’ve watched my share of Hollywood flicks—The Lord of the Rings, The Bourne series, and many others. But somewhere along the way, I began noticing a small, almost forgettable detail. In film after film, a character enters a house and switches on the television. Not to watch anything in particular. Just… on. It stays on through the entire scene, murmuring in the background.
It felt familiar.
In real life, too, the television rarely asks to be watched. It simply occupies the room. People talk to each other while keeping one eye on the screen. Meals are eaten with half-attention. Silence feels awkward unless something is filling it.
Once, a friend invited me over for dinner. We spoke, but his eyes never quite left the screen. I remember wondering—not angrily, just curiously—what the invitation had really been for.
Over time, I noticed how natural this had become. In many homes, the television stays on for hours, sometimes the entire evening. When people speak of stress, of wanting peace, the contradiction quietly stands there in the living room, glowing.
Television doesn’t arrive noisily. It enters gently, almost politely. And yet, it brings with it a crowd—voices, opinions, arguments, urgencies. The room fills, even when no one is listening.
Peace needs space. It doesn’t push its way in. It waits to be invited.
I noticed this most clearly at the dinner table. For years, the television was turned on while we ate. Food was consumed quickly, absent-mindedly. One day, we decided not to switch it on. Nothing dramatic happened. We simply ate. Slowly. We tasted the food. We spoke more. We listened.
That small change stayed.
Eventually, the television was turned off for good. Not as a protest, not out of anger—just as an experiment that quietly became a way of living. It has been off since 2014.
Do we miss it? Not really.
We still watch films. We still seek entertainment. But now it is chosen, not ambient. Invited, not imposed.
I don’t believe television is the enemy. But I have learned that constant watching often hides something else—uncertainty, restlessness, the discomfort of sitting with oneself. Watching is passive. Living rarely is.
There was a time in my life when I watched far more than I should have. I wasn’t avoiding television; I was avoiding myself. It took time to notice that.
When the screen goes dark, something else becomes visible: thought, boredom, longing, creativity. Not all of it is pleasant. But it is honest.
Sometimes, peace arrives disguised as discomfort.
When the screen goes dark, there is no applause. No sudden clarity. Just a quiet room, and a little more awareness than before.
One begins to notice small things—the rhythm of one’s own thoughts, the way time stretches when it is not being filled, the faint restlessness that was always there but never had a voice. None of this demands immediate action. It only asks to be noticed.
Turning the television off does not magically improve life. But it loosens something. It returns a bit of agency. It creates a pause where reflection can enter without being drowned out.
In that pause, questions surface naturally. Not dramatic ones. Simple, persistent ones. What am I avoiding? What am I waiting for? What would I do if nothing distracted me right now?
There are no ready answers. And that is fine.
Perhaps the value lies not in fixing anything, but in staying with the silence a little longer—long enough to remember that life, when lived attentively, does not require constant background noise.