Reality DVR

Having a DVR is playing with my reality. How? I keep wanting to rewind what is happening so I can see what I might have missed. Not rewind the TV but rewind my life.

For example, I just now heard a siren and looked up to see a police car racing down the street with lights flashing chasing after a speeder. I vaguely remember seeing, out of the corner of my eye, a vehicle speeding down the street but I don’t remember what the vehicle really looked like. I almost reached for my DVR remote so I could rewind and see what sort of vehicle was speeding and maybe pause so I can catch a look at the driver. I caught myself from doing this since it wouldn’t work. But the urge was still there.

This happened a few weeks ago at church. My pastor had made a profound point during his sermon and I had this urge to reach for the remote to rewind and hear what he had to say again. This urge almost made me laugh out loud because it was so ridiculous. But luckily I held back because that would have been incredibly inappropriate to do during the sermon since Pastor wasn’t saying anything funny at that point.

I can’t believe how much owning a DVR has influenced my life. It took me years to get one. My brother kept telling me how much I would like it but, the one time I had it, I didn’t like that I couldn’t scroll through the channels like I could with just the TV remote. There was this hesitancy about it that annoyed me. There was also the fact that the technician who set it up didn’t do it right so it had a number of problems that also annoyed me. After a week of having it, I disconnected it and returned it to the cable company and went back to just using my VCR to record. But my brother kept talking about it and talking about it and finally I agreed to try it again.

This time it was set up properly and I became used to using the guide to scroll through channels rather than flipping from one channel to the other. I also have grown to love the ability to record shows so easily and even setting the recordings remotely (from any computer by logging into the cable company’s website).

What I didn’t realize would be a side effect from having a DVR was the urge to pause and rewind real life. It is such a ridiculous sensation. But I am so used to pausing the TV if I want to run to the bathroom or go to the kitchen to get a drink or if someone calls me on the phone or knocks on my door. I just pause and can go back to watching right where I left it. Even the news or live shows. It is such a remarkable thing and it has greatly influenced my whole life.

I can see how they came up with the movie “Click”. (FMI http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389860/) A movie about a man who obtains a universal remote that controls his life. Fast forward, rewind or pause depending on what he wants to do. I don’t know for sure but I can imagine that the creators of that movie owned a DVR. And they created a whole movie about the urge to use a remote to control life the way the DVR controls the TV.

What would it be like if everyone had such a remote. Would we see people standing in the street seeing events replaying in their minds? “Excuse him, just step around. He is watching that accident over there happen again”. And what would people miss if they were constantly reliving events or fast forwarding to avoid things? It’s bad enough that people are missing real life because they are spending so much time talking on cell phones, texting, tweeting or playing with facebook. I don’t think we need the added distraction of a reality remote.

But part of me wishes that I could have a remote so I could rewind my life and see parts of it over again. Then again, I would hate to relive embarrassing moments or painful moments. Some things I would just as soon forget and move on.

So maybe it is best to just live life as it comes and not pause or rewind. To just hang on to good memories and forget the bad. And run outdoors to look down the street the next time the police pull someone over. That would be the easiest way to see who got caught speeding. Or…just go back to what I was doing and forget about it. That would not only be the easiest solution but also the laziest. And sometimes being lazy is the way to go!

Now that I am done writing this, I can unpause my TV and go back to watching my cooking show. No, wait, need to get a fresh cup of tea first. Now it’s back to the show. What a wonderful invention, this DVR!