Tidiness of The Half-Hour Sitcom
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The Half-Hour Sitcom
When I was introduced to the half-hour sitcom, I didn’t realize how much it would affect my view of problem-solving. I didn’t realize how much it would affect the world’s view of how to deal with trouble. There was a tidiness about those sitcoms. Usually they started out bright and cheery. Then a problem was introduced. The characters struggled with it. By the end of the half-hour, the issue was resolved and the world was rosy again.
Real Life
In real life, we came to expect those instant solutions. We stopped understanding the need to live through the hurts, the frustrations, the anger for more than a half an hour. More than a day. More than a month. Divorce rates sky-rocketed and continue to do so … except that today’s generation, having watched their parents’ marriages dissolve, is afraid of commitment. They just live together. To heck with marriage!
The Farce and the Force
The tidiness of the half-hour sitcoms was a farce. It did us no favor. Problems come. That’s a given. But they don’t go away in the blink of a TV show. They don’t go away with a magic wand. Or a twitch of “Bewitched” nose. They can not be solved without time, effort, patience, guidance, wisdom, and often forgiveness. They are better resolved with prayer. We need a Higher Force! Let the Holy Spirit in. Ask for help.
Rewards of Joy and Peace
Problem solving is not quick and tidy. It is a messy, time-consuming business! Don’t let the half-hour sitcom mentality deprive you of the joy and peace that comes from tenacity, persistence, forgiveness and the rewards of hangin’ in there!
Comments on: "The Demise of Problem-Solving" (2)
I just wrote a blog for work about teaching coding to children. Some want to start as young as kindergarten. At first I thought that terrible. Let kids be kids. But the more I researched the more I realized that the mind is a marvelous thing, and learning something at an early age (that and a foreign language) is much easier to their pliable minds. That’s because they haven’t wasted all their life on half hour sitcoms. Great blog.
Claudia, I think it’s a great idea to start early (as early as kindergarten) to teach children a second language. Yes, catch ‘em while their minds and tongues are receptive and pliable!