Trust the Gene Genie

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

I can post as often as I like. It's not like anybody reads it. I had an epiphany ... last night? two nights ago? I don't remember. But the moment of enlightenment went something like this:

Thinking about how to make my life more pious, I realized the time had come to give up my wholesale love of all things pop culture. I'm obsessed with movies, music and television. Not to mention news and current events. I have three or four web sites I read every day to make sure I was up on the latest possible scrap of info or rumor coming out of the entertainment industry. Which in itself isn't such a problem. But I got to thinking about who I wanted to be, you know, the kind of man I wanted to become and then thought about the guys I admired, the pious ones I looked up to and I realized they're not tapped into pop culture, they're tapped into other things.

And so I thought, has the time come? Is this what I need to do to reach the next plane? And I realized it probably is. It's not to say I can't enjoy movies anymore or give up U2, I just needed to scale it all back, keep it moderation. I'm not going to die if I'm not the first person to hear some odd casting rumor or the news of the next Star Wars movie. Though, maybe I will. To let it go, let it fade away.

I then wondered what on earth would I do to replace the hole in my life I would have if I gave up my obsession with pop culture. I mean, on a practical level, what do I physically do?

That's when I had the epiphany. I don't need to do anything. I just need to scale it back and let the rest take care of itself. So, that's my plan. Scale back my consumption and let the rest take care of itself.

I'm not about to kid myself and believe it's that easy. I mean, movies, music, that's who I am, that's who I've been for 20 years -- yes, since I was at least 8 years old. I loved getting into my older brother's Billy Joel tapes as a kid and I can vividly remember the first handful of movies I saw in the theater as a child.

So it'll be hard, but not impossible. And the end result will be ... I guess, in a few years -- more likely a few decades -- me as a more pious person . It will be me a little more like Henry B. Eyering or Dallin H. Oaks or Jeffrey R. Holland, which is a good thing.

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