Tell me if this is a familiar situation for you. You were watching a movie or a TV show which apparently everyone else has watched, thus necessitating your viewing of it for fear of contracting the dreaded FOMO disease. However, at the end of one or another episode or in a scene in said movie you see something you can’t un-see, or hear something you can’t un-hear. Perhaps it was a sex scene, a scene with nudity. Or a scene of particular violence and gore. Even “mature themes” in a show can take you into territory you wish you never trod, leaving you questioning “what kind of ‘mature’ person should think on these things?” Once these scenes find a place in the hippocampus it’s not leaving campus. It has moved in. It is messy and stinks. The smell of its unpleasant abode soon wafts throughout the mind. Vivid recollections come back to haunt and you can’t get rid of them. I have no doubt that you can recollect some of these scenes. Even as I asked the question, they come back to haunt you.
What do you do? You can’t remove those disturbing recollections from memory, a task that’s basically not possible. But there is a degree of peace found in prevention. It’s a battle for the mind in this media saturated world. We don’t enter neutral territory when we enter the kingdom of Netflix. So come prepared.
First, be prepared with the right attitude.
I want to keep my mind free and clean (as the word of God and my informed conscious dictates). The matters on which we set our minds on matters. It’s not as if life is consisted merely in what we do with our hands and feet, or what we say. It’s also very much a matter of what we watch and therefore at a very basic level what we think on. Think on that. How much are we thinking? Lots. We think about all sorts of things. But what dictates my thoughts? Again, lots. I feed my mind lots of food for thought. A portion comes from my Netflix subscription. Other portions from Gods word, or friends, podcasts, video games, books and time alone on a walk. I must be aware of this. The more I play a video game, the more I think about that video game. Is that what I want? Well I must ask myself. How much do I want to be preoccupied with that game? It seems so obvious to state, but you think about the things you watch. Yes it is obvious, but we are not always conscious or aware of this fact. Much like breathing. Rarely do we think about breathing, until a diesel train goes by, or until the dog farts. Once triggered I’m very aware of my breathing. I’m actively supressing it. But it’s not so obvious when you work on a diesel train, or work in a dog pound. So it is that modern graphic content is all too “normal”. What we might even say to ourselves is, “it’s just one scene, I’ll put up with it.” Let me ask, what are you willing to “put up with”? It’s a trick question. If you have to ‘put up with it’, doesn’t that already say something? An attitude shift is needed. Inform your conscience, inform your mind with the word of God. Let it dictate your standards and apply those standards with wisdom. Consider this important passage from Romans 8.
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5–8)
You cannot take the right actions without first having the right attitude. Laws and rules don’t help without a renewed heart and mind. So implement change in your mind before you implement change with your hands. One follows the other, and what you do follows very closely on what you think. But first, have the right attitude toward media and the garden of the mind.
Next week we will consider some practical tips for managing media consumption and moderation.
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Bigvai and Shiphrah 