Not long ago, having lunch with colleagues – all known scientists – I brought up our pervasive world of television, especially the deluge of serials that can be streamed. There’s Breaking Bad – riveting, and The Wire – amazing, the drug world of Baltimore seen through a prism, and The House of Cards – oh my god, a bit (not quite) like reading today’s New York Times, frightening, a lot to worry about.

“After a few episodes, I’m hooked. These shows may be soap operas of our era, but they’re masters of sucking me in, genres of literature in our electronic age, quite something,” I said. “Without them, I’m sure I would get more sleep!”

“Never watch them,” said one of my friends. “I don’t have time for TV. How do you do it?”

“Same here,” said another.

“Nothing? You don’t see anything on TV?” I asked.

“Well, sometimes, the news.”

I understand busy. I’ve battled overload my whole life – running a laboratory, publishing articles, lecturing, family, now writing. Yet…I’m intrigued by what we prize and snub: yes, snub.

“I go to a lot of movies,” I said. “Some are good, some not so good, of course. But some are great. Ever see The Lives of Others?”

I got a warmer reception about movies, which were more popular than TV. But still…

“I prefer books to movies,” said one of my colleagues between bites of his sandwich.

Heads nodded.

Books are prized, movies, well, sometimes; they’re not snubbed like streaming serials on TV.

“But a lot of books are lousy, poorly written, mundane, not original,” I chipped in, being the devil’s advocate, as usual. “You have to be selective with books as with TV or movies.”

Yes, they agreed, but they said that books stimulate your imagination and participation. They were much better than movies. Movies were for spectators, who just sit like sponges in the dark.

They had a point, although I ignored the implication that movies exclude participation. Still, I was bothered about the professed love of books above all else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m writing these days. I want everyone to like my books. True, books require your imagination to complete the scenes. However, movies can give you scenes you never imagined, something new from someone else. Why is a “well read” person respected so much more than a “well movied” person, at least in some circles, and a “well TVed” person considered worthless, the bottom of the barrel?

Later I started to wonder whether I was wasting precious time by watching TV serials. Was I turning into a couch potato, a mindless recipient of entertainment? No, I thought, perhaps defensively. Really? Why not?

Because I prize life, which deals with the conundrum of multiple people trapped in my mind. Aren’t we all more people within ourselves than those few inhabiting the world of our own making? TV serials and movies, like books, can reach our undeveloped embryos within the womb of our souls – prisoners of our choices, both demons and angels – and let them breathe as much as allow us to enter their fictional world. It’s a two-way street.

Take Orange is the New Black, a TV serial of complex women in prison who find humanity in their conflicted lives of disadvantage and
crime. Is visiting that world a waste of time? Some may think so. I did at first, until I finished watching the serial. I doubt the prison scenes were accurate, but that didn’t matter. Some parts were boring, repetitious like some passages of the greatest books (think Proust). But, even the momentary video preceding each episode showing birds flying over a barbed wire fence made my free self confront my imprisoned self, hardly a waste of time. Who is too busy to think about that confrontation?

And then there’s House of Cards, where humanity falls to ambition and pure evil. No character is likeable, yet so many of us get “hooked” and turn-on the tube to see what happens. What does that do to the myth that every story needs a likeable character to draw one in? Maybe some of the ghosts roaming inside us recognize the power of ambition, probably unconsciously to a large extent, and feel vindicated that they don’t belong to that world. Do we waste time when we think about that, visit worlds without the proper passport? Do we snub what we fear?

With respect to cheering for the bad guy: Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, said in an interview that he wondered how long the audience would root for Walter White, the school teacher robbed of his discovery by his colleague, a cancer victim and chemist trying to provide support for his family once he’s gone, as he turns progressively more and more evil. Interesting question. What do you think?

So, for whatever it’s worth, I’m cautious about snubbing anything, because I love life. The less I snub, the more I like, the more I think, the richer my life, and the more opportunities my suppressed ghosts have to see the light of day, at least vicariously.

And I still have time to meet my commitments and ambitions.