Irritainment

   Ok, I’ll admit even I am enamored by irritainment.  What is irritainment you ask?  It is the television that insults your intelligence, makes little to no sense, and has no redeeming factors, yet you still watch it to see how bad it is.  It is the person who boils your blood with the things they post online, yet you read every one of them.  It is the celebrity you despise but know every fact about.  Irritainment is the entertainment and media spectacles that are both annoying and compulsively watchable.

  And the saddest part is I know I’m not the only one!  There just too much of this today for all of us not to be a little bit taken by it.  But why?  We don’t like to be annoyed, so why then do we choose to do it?

  I think it goes back to the logical fallacy stuck in all our brains that if we just find something we are superior to then that somehow elevates us. We watch because we can look down on it from our perch and feel better out our state.  That we somehow move up by being over something lower than us.

  It doesn’t work that way however.  You never elevate yourself by putting other down.  You don’t achieve something by others not achieving.  You can’t push off someone else to the top, you must climb up yourself.

  Instead maybe we should listen to what the apostle Paul told us in Philippians 4:8: 

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

  Instead of being enamored by idiocy, let’s be entertained by excellence.  Instead of delving into the muck below, let’s dwell in the heavens.  Promote good things instead of railing against the bad. Focus on the faithful rather than being distracted by the dregs. Be pulled up rather than being dragged down.  Be happy about the good rather than be depressed by the evil.

  Won’t that make us so much happier?

  And besides that it will so much less annoying.