My name is Kayla, and I am a TV junkie.

Hi, Kayla.

Yes, it’s true, television is like the pain in my lower back that I keep around even though it annoys me, because it feels good when I massage it! Hm…let’s try that again. TV is bad, but oh so very fun to watch!

“Wait!” says the addict in the back of the room. He’s new. His wife made him come. He wants to know if TV really is that bad. “Everyone around me says I should watch less TV. I mentioned that I was excited about the premier of ‘Breaking Bad’ and cited the exact date of the season premier. They looked at me like I was crazy, and said, ‘Wow, you watch lot of T.V.’ I told them I was really only familiar with the one show, because I felt ashamed. Must I be ashamed?”

Good sir, it has happened to me, too. But for me, it was a reference to premier of the “Vampire Diaries.” (October 2nd. Season 6. I’ll be missing the meetings that day.)

But what of this man’s concern? What if he has a point? Is there a real problem with TV?

Are you ready, moms everywhere? All together now. “YES! Absolutely! My child won’t do his or her homework before numbing his or her brains in front of the television. My husband won’t leave the couch during football season. TV is the devil. A home wrecker.”

Now let’s hear from the husbands and children. Would a representative please approach the stand? Anyone?

Fine, fine, I’ll go.

I already mentioned that TV and I have a love hate relationship. I should clarify that I believe that TV, like many other things, has an addictive tendency. It can be, and very often is, misused. Watching too much has melted my brain and countless others’ brains I’m sure. Moderation, I tell you! Moderation! But my firm belief in down time has made me open my eyes to its benefits. And here I stand, a loyal junkie, with much to say in favor of television.

I’m a writer (hey, welcome to my blog!) and I feel there is much to be gained in this area professionally from watching a story play out on screen. Granted, I can and do learn more about “writing” from reading actual books, but the crafty story-telling of TV shows should not be underestimated. The tragic twists and turns of the relationships and medical traumas in “Grey’s Anatomy”, for example, have nothing short of inspired and trained my ability to torture my characters until the readers hurt. (Mm-hm, writers are demented. But that’s what you love, readers, don’t lie.) The uncanny ability of a show to leave you wanting more as the end credits roll, and draw you into a Netflix binge that threatens your sleep schedules, is a shadowy recreation of the delicate ending of a chapter. Do you still want to read more? Yes? Then dive into Chapter 22. Heck, pick up Catching Fire after you’re done reading Hunger Games. You’re hooked. The author or television writer did a great job.

Not a writer? It’s okay, there are other reasons to sustain your addiction. Keep breathing. When you find the right shows, they can teach you a lot about life. For example, I was watching a show the other day and a line of dialogue jumped out of the screen and hit me in the face. Literally. We’re talking full on linebacker, climbing off of my entertainment center and running at the couch like his NFL career depends on it. I was tackled. Floored. Mind…blown.

I should set the scene. A wife had brought her husband into the hospital. He was an unconscious genius (a genius when conscious, but currently unconscious, that is…) and the wife was in a pickle. She could either allow surgery that would shrink his brain a little and leave him with average intelligence, or she could direct the doctors to give him drugs that may or may not help his brain heal on its own. The tricky thing was that if she went with the drugs and he didn’t heal, he would die. Sneaky stuff. So she was all distraught, because he was about to invent the world’s first 200 mpg car or something of equal awesomeness (a self-regenerating bowl of ice cream, for example) and she was worried that he would be unfulfilled if he had to live a life of normal intelligence going forward. She offers the line, “He wants to leave a legacy, and he has the capacity to do so.”

Whoa, lady. Let’s talk about this. So you’re husband and his snazzy car/ice cream brain are gearing up to leave a legacy. That’s really great for him. Really, you should be proud. But what are you saying about the rest of us? What about the guy next door in the hospital bed, praying for a heart transplant to become available so he can leave his legacy?

He has an average brain. No legacy potential, just an average brain.

Oh, right. That makes sense.

Wait. Can we revisit that? TV, man. It kills me. All I want to do is numb my brain, but all of the sudden my Netflix queue has the ability to thrust me down into the depths of my soul to examine my beliefs and moral theories. What could this man’s legacy be, and what is the legacy forecast for any of the people around him?

Take, I don’t know, you for example. Yes, you, reader. I’m pretty sure you’re not in your garage right now, putting your engineering degree to the metal and perfecting the world’s first self-regenerating bowl of ice cream. If so, maybe you should get back to that. Your ice cream is melting. You shouldn’t read blogs while you’re brain-blasting. But if I’m correct, you might be sitting in the middle of an average-IQ life wondering what it would be like to be the engineer who solves the world’s problems, whether it be one scoop or two. Maybe you’re wondering what people would say if you went into the hospital, unconscious and threatening to follow the light. Turn to your nearest loved one, and ask. WAIT! Before you do, let me put my money on something that goes a little like this:

“He wants to leave a legacy, and he has the capacity to do so.”

If I set up a PayPal account on this blog, will you pay up within the next few days? I know I’m right. I know what they said–give or take a word or two. Give me a break. Those people on the show had Hollywood writers. Your loved one knows you better. They probably said something real that didn’t involve the fancy word “legacy” or the phrase, “to do so”. I mean, where are we, English class?

I would digress, but I think I would still be off topic if I tried to go back a step. So I digress digress digress, and take firm footing on the middle ground on the television battle. Can it be bad? Absolutely. Can it be good? Yes, if you’re willing to be an active viewer. Use your brain! Learn from it! Ask yourself questions about what you’re viewing. In closing, I’ll provide a list of thought provoking questions you may turn to if you need.

Do I side with this character on the moral issue at hand?

Could I be a better person if I went through what that character went through?

What is it that makes a character so lovable and funny?

How would I tackle the armed gunman and save all the hostages if I were in that situation?