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<title>The Height of Entertainment - SPK's Rationality Essays</title>
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<h1 id="post-title">The Height of Entertainment</h1>
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<p><strong>Entry question</strong>: What is the peak of entertainment that you can reach?</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="perfectionism">Perfectionism</h1>
<p>Notice how critical we are these days about movies?</p>
<p>We demand Perfection.</p>
<p>If a sitcom gets even slightly boring in one episode, we toss it aside and look for the next one.</p>
<p>If a book isn’t very humorous or punchy, we just throw it away.</p>
<p>If you have a hundred highly recommended books in your folder, and you pick up one and it is good but not epic-awesome, you’re gonna throw it away. Why? Because SURELY among those other hundred books, there must be something that is even more epic-awesome than this one. SURELY.</p>
<p>And so this book isn’t good enough. But then, nothing will be good enough (unless it is ultra-awesome, in which case it will seem to be merely good enough). Everything suffers from comparison.</p>
<p>Plus, every single book you pick up will seem worse than it actually is, simply because you’re being so critical and perfectionistic.</p>
<p>Nothing will be good enough. Life will become an endless succession of disappointing book after disappointing book. Disappointing movie after disappointing movie.</p>
<p>Sound familiar? When was the last time you said a movie <em>wasn’t</em> disappointing? Yup.</p>
<p>It may seem like a virtue. It may seem like you’re becoming an adult, you’re becoming so <em>refined</em> in your tastes that most things are not good enough…</p>
<p>But if you want to be entertained and have fun and if your “tastes” are getting in the way of having fun, then you aren’t refined, you’re an idiot.</p>
<!-- Add more stuff -->
<p>What does this do?</p>
<h2 id="the-secret-to-happiness">The Secret to Happiness</h2>
<p>The more important aspect of Perfectionism is that we end up have insanely high expectations.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The only thing you can’t have these days is have an experience that exceeds your expectations.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>– Thalaivar Barry Schwarz</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When was the last time you were pleasantly surprised and rocked by a movie? When did you last let a movie touch you?</p>
<p>(That was rhetorical, btw. Let’s not try to answer it by saying “Yeah, I was touched three weeks ago. I am a really good enjoyer-of-movies… blah blah blah…” - that way only lies trouble. [Link to Virtue post])</p>
<p>How can we have more such experiences?</p>
<p>We lower our expectations.</p>
<h1 id="opportunity-cost">Opportunity cost</h1>
<p>What’s more, every time you’re watching an average show, you will feel like kicking yourself. Why? Cos there are so many awesome shows out there (somewhere), and here you are watching this silly show that made you laugh only 2.37 times in the last 15 minutes.</p>
<p>Every minute you spend watching a crap movie is a minute that you could have spent watching an insane awesome movie that is <strong>surely</strong> out there!</p>
<p>But, remember, every movie will feel less awesome than it is when you’re watching it cos of the no-hard-work effect and the compare and contrast effect.</p>
<p>So, you’ll feel like kicking yourself more and more. You won’t enjoy your movie and you will feel worse and worse that you’re not able to get good movies to enjoy. And because even the great movies aren’t doing it for you, you will expect more and more from the next movies. You will expect it to be some insane awesome max utter beautiful poetic great movie of the universe. You know I’m telling the truth here!</p>
<p>When you’ve watched Pulp Fiction and experienced the non-linear screenplay, and watched the Dark Knight and experienced the utter awesomeness + action + philosophy + inspiration, and watched The Godfather and experienced mob stuff, and watched Memento and experienced the backward time thing and the unreliable narrator thing, and watched …</p>
<p>Think of the epic awesome movies you have watched and all the genres they encompassed. You’ve experienced practically EVERY SINGLE movie plot device and cinematography technique and music genre EVER!</p>
<p>You’re probably not gonna ever come across something that is utterly utterly new to you!</p>
<p>Think about it! Are you holding out for something awesome to come along and hit you in the stomach and completely take your breath away?</p>
<p>Well, stop holding your breath! Ain’t gonna happen.</p>
<p>I just realized that this is what my feelings are. I never even contested that thought in my mind. Yes, movies were all generally crap these days. I could find a dozen mistakes in every film I saw.</p>
<p>What was I waiting for? I was waiting to discover the epic awesome genre of movies by ultra-insane-max directors who would just dazzle me and get me as high as cocaine. Plus, all those things I didn’t know about Movie Theory were giving me more and more hope. Maybe in that thicket of genres and techniques and plot devices lay the best movies for me. You know, stuff like, whatshisname, noir, or neo-noir, or bulkenpnkehe’euoel, or crap.</p>
<h1 id="abnormal">Abnormal?</h1>
<p>Before you go off on a rant about how I’m “anti-progress” and anti-whatever and how I’m asking for impossible stuff, let’s remind ourselves of a bit of history.</p>
<p>Your childhood.</p>
<p>Let’s not depend solely on hazy memories. What does the data say? That is all we care about.</p>
<p>Were people way less happy back then? Are we riding a huge wave of happiness right now? What was the impact of all this easy access?</p>
<p>Research seems to show that people are now the least happy generation since the 1950s. Yup, people from the dull, boring, black-and-white era with big clunky low-def TVs and zero internet and zero Facebook were having more fun than us with all our TBs of HD movies and sitcoms and books and stuff.</p>
<h1 id="actions">Actions</h1>
<p>It would be pretty irresponsible of me to simply list out all the problems with such a deluge of easily available content without talking about ways to solve them.</p>
<h1 id="this-isnt-about-piracy">This isn’t about Piracy</h1>
<p>This is about the Low-Information Diet. Piracy is simply like a cheese-burger. It makes sure that people will never be able to stay on their diet.</p>
<h1 id="its-showtime">It’s Showtime!</h1>
<h5 id="why-are-movies-so-disappointing-these-days">Why are movies so disappointing these days?</h5>
<ul>
<li><p>Cos directors don’t make them as good</p></li>
<li><p>Cos we have insanely high expectations</p></li>
</ul>
<h5 id="if-you-watch-movies-so-that-you-get-entertained-and-if-your-tastes-get-in-the-way-whose-fault-is-it">If you watch movies so that you get entertained and if your tastes get in the way, whose fault is it?</h5>
<ul>
<li><p>The movie’s fault</p></li>
<li><p>Your fault</p></li>
</ul>
<h5 id="if-the-only-things-we-read-are-those-that-are-punchy-and-grab-our-eyeballs-what-do-we-miss-out-on">If the only things we read are those that are punchy and grab our eyeballs, what do we miss out on?</h5>
<p>The books and movies that are deeper and require careful attention.</p>
<div class="info">Created: June 14, 2014</div>
<div class="info">Last modified: August 6, 2015</div>
<div class="info">Status: finished</div>
<div class="info"><b>Tags</b>: piracy, low-information diet, value</div>
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