Most of the time, when I am listening to podcasts, I have a rather one sided discussion. I often yell at the people talking, interject ideas that the podcasters totally fail to address (no matter how hard I yell, those words almost never fall into the vacuum of time and get addressed by presenters). This episode was not that different. I did not yell much but I had lots of Amens and Preach it moments.
To begin with, it’s a challenge to choose the right media, for the right person. We say things like, “Don’t yuck on my yum”, but I think it is because most of us come from a place where we have experienced some level of this, whether it’s games or visual media, or what have you. As a therapist, choosing media is a huge challenge because there are so many potential fails. Josué talked about trying to get his sister into ODAAT. It may be a situation where, taking the therapy hat off, is a hard thing to do. You may have chosen the perfect episode to get your sister thinking, but not the perfect one to get her excited about ODAAT. We are all looking for Shakti Pot answers, in which we provide a single tweak to a persons life, and suddenly everything falls into place. I think we do this, because we are a special clan of geekdom that gets swept away by our media, because we have experienced the life changing consequences of consuming the media we fawn and fan over. Not everyone gets it, and this is where this episode got to my heart most.
I am very excited and happy that Josué has joined me on a very personal journey into Babylon 5. We are working on an episode by episode podcast of B5, and I am ecstatic to share this with others. I have been a witness to the transformative power of Babylon 5 ever since I discovered it. I have been a B5 evangelist for a while now, but often my love has fallen on deaf ears. On at least 1, maybe 2 occasions I have sang the praises of the show and had it fall on deaf ears. Or worse, a couple of really good friends found no joy in it at all. I started them with the pilot, which does very little to speak to the joys of B5, but it is also a necessary part of the B5 equation. Because B5 is a story arc, wherever you start, you are missing pieces of the puzzle. But to have this paragon of mythological fiction, mehed by the people I love, has been a sad thing. It’s like, here, here is a little piece of me…do you like it? No, no that piece of you is garbage! Don’t share such a thing again. And the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
When I was in high school, I had the rather immature battle cry of, “ If you don’t like my music, you don’t like me”. As I said, it was a childish statement, but the inner child screams when someone poopoos what we love. But you guys hit some of my thoughts on the head. The way a piece of media contacts us and impacts us has not only to do with the value of the media, but a number of personal dimensions that are hard to quantify. If we adopt a sort of fatalist take on the world, it could be that we get what we need from media, when we need it. Strong praise of a piece of media that is meaningful to us, may simply meet others at the wrong time. I found this awareness from this show, but at the same time, miles away, with no impact from me, someone else was getting the same lesson from a piece of media that I would find to be meh. So as practitioners, I guess it is really important to gauge the clients interest, and try to stay in their wheelhouse. If they geek out about old episodes of The Waltons, then I may need to stretch myself to find the episode where Johnboy realized he was attracted to men.
The library if it works, is a perfect tool for spreading interests, and still realizing that experiences vary. What you get from Giligans Island, May not mesh with what I get, but the bigger the list, the higher likelihood we have of reaching others.
Now, I just need to make more library entries.
