I know that it seems that everyone has something to say about reality television – what the hell – reality TV has been on every station but PBS on some of my evenings home, so how can I not comment on it? Last night I tuned into “Who Wants To Marry My Dad?” and “For Love Or Money”. Hey, I have Monday nights off and it really draws you in no matter how icky the whole thing is. What does it say about a culture that is so intoxicated with celebrating manipulation? In “real” life, it would seem that to tell someone they are manipulative would be a criticism. But here we are, placing groups of so-called “real” people in rooms, on islands, in mansions, and asking them to exercise their powers of deceit and manipulation to see who gets to be prom queen for a day.

The opposing force in the whole equation seems to be the actual reality. That is, rewarding the one who is the best only at at appearing “real” honest and sincere. We fall in love with these Cinderellas, and sometimes they lose. It is fascinating and horrifying. Because what we are really saying is that what is best is to appear as real, sincere and honest as possible while at the same time manipulating your reality. We are teaching that in life, someone always has “hand” (as George Costanza calls it). We insist that happiness (money, love) is about having control, when in truth happiness and love can only come when you remove yourself from these strenuous forces and live without the constant push and pull of power. William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a tribute to this idea. We need to understand that opposing forces such as these are a part of another great dichotomy of one and two. If we split things into Good and Evil, up and down, push and pull… there is no difference in being on one side or the other because to have good is to have evil and to have up is to have down and so forth.

We are making a dreadful mistake substituting television for something that we call “real”. There is a Phillip K Dick novel where the general pastime of society is to take a drug that literally immerses your psyche into a diorama. The participants can join others and interact in their little environments, buying more accessories as they please, and thus escaping their own miserable existences. He illustrates a catatonic society that has forgotten the truth of reality. Our alternate reality is now reality television. You, too can vote for the next American Idol. Now, instead of being a diversion of silly stories and slapstick heroes – we are jumbling our expectations for life, creating Oscar Wilde’s out of us all – expecting every corner to be a melo-meta-drama that everyone else should care about. We suggest that Days of Our Lives is really the days of our lives. Narcissism dives deep into solipsism and human communication breaks down.

Whats more, I am even more ticked off when a reality teevee show is more constructed and fabricated – like “The Restaurant” - filling in actors and models instead of workers, blatant product placement, and taking scenes more than once. If ONLY life worked that way! I sure would like to redo a couple of scenes in my own life. But I can’t do that. Life is not produced. I have to let go of the issue of control and try as much as possible to watch troubles pass by like clouds. Maybe we are actually getting closer to nirvana by blurring these boundaries of reality. After all, someone is always watching, there is always a story of life, actors are still real humans… or is that like saying that in truth there really is nothing that is synthetic, because it all evolved from something natural in the beginning?