The same toxicity applies to watching television. I stopped doing this a couple years ago, and I discovered a whole new world. Now, when I’m out walking in the evenings, listening to nesting birds and watching them flutter to find their places, I glance through windows and see gaudy, exaggerated colors splashing across screens occupying entire walls. I feel pity for the people inside who are so numbed by their eye candy that they are dead to the subtle, rich world I live in.

I have heard that there is such a thing as “televised presidential debates”, and what I have heard convinces me that they are, as I would have suspected, a confluence of two rivers of toxicity. Gaudy, flashy, trivial contests between liars seeking a chance to lord over those bound by the prevalent illusion that these miscreants intend to bring about anything other than more slavery.