Lonely (What I've Learned from TV Part 2)

If it's Sunday night at 11:00, then anyone looking for me will find me in front of my tv, possibly perilously close to hugging it, reminding myself that Jesse Pinkman isn't real so it wouldn't do me any good to get in my car, drive to Albuquerque, find him, hug him, and try to save him.

Jesse Pinkman is one of the main characters on AMC's series Breaking Bad, which I started watching this summer based on a recommendation from my sister's friend, who I have since decided has the best television taste in the history of time. The show is that good. If you haven't seen it, the basic premise is that a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, so he starts to cook meth to earn money to leave to take care of his family. He teams up with a former student, Jesse Pinkman, who helps him cook and sell the meth. I know, you're probably thinking that a show about meth dealers has to be horrible, but, while it does show a lot of the ins and outs of the meth trade, the show is really about people.

Because he's been involved in drugs since high school, Jesse is estranged from his family, and he basically lacks any real connection to anyone. During the first three seasons, you see him trying to form connections with people, and he's almost successful, most notably his relationship with Walt, which starts as teacher-student but begins to seem more like father-son as they work together, but something happens to mess up every real relationship he starts. Season four finds Jesse totally alone, trying to numb his sense of loneliness by filling his house with people and things. There's basically a lot of shots of Jesse sitting alone or doing things alone, and he seems like a shell of a human (and that's why the episodes this season have made me so impossibly sad).

Jesse is a perfect example of the desire we all have to be known, to have people in our lives who know all about us, who understand us. We want to matter to other people.

Since I'm now 27, I'm getting to a point where more and more of my friends are married and more and more of my friends have kids. What that means is that it's getting harder and harder to make plans with people--I've found that husbands and kids can limit one's spontaneity and that it can be difficult to work around three people's schedules instead of one. I'm sure if I had a husband and a kid I would be less into going out and doing things all the time, that going out to eat and going to the movies wouldn't be on my to do list every weekend, that going to concerts and on trips wouldn't be as easy. And I know that I would be worried about my married friends if they wanted to hang out with me instead of their husbands all the time. And while I completely understand, I would be lying if I said that not having a ton of single friends didn't make me feel lonely sometimes. Or sometimes make me feel like everyone's life is passing me by and I'm just getting farther and farther behind.

Then, when it's Sunday and I go to church and watch Breaking Bad and see sad, lonely Jesse Pinkman, I'm reminded that no matter how many people I'm around, no matter how many times I hang out with other people, doing things with people will never be enough to make me feel not lonely. And I remember how many people I have in my life who really know me, how many people I have in my life who I can be honest with, how many people in my life really care about me. And how that's so much better than having people around all the time to do trivial things with. I'm also reminded that even if I had a packed social calendar plus all my close friends I would still feel lonely sometimes because no one could ever fully know me or satisfy my every need or make me feel loved every second. I remember that the only real cure for my loneliness is Christ, and I remember how when I look to other people instead of Him to cure my loneliness, it breaks His heart, just like my heart breaks when I watch Jesse Pinkman.

Satisfied (What I've Learned from TV part 1)

If you read my blog at all last summer, you may remember that during the summers I watch a lot of tv shows on DVD. Last summer, I watched Prison Break, which you may recall made me slightly paranoid for about a week. Using your mad deductive reasoning skills, you can figure out that I've watched my fair share of tv shows this summer too. The other day my mom asked me why I found television so interesting and how I thought that Jesus fit into tv. I gave her a short answer, basically telling her that I liked getting to see different perspectives and that I thought Jesus was most present in His absence (which will make more sense later). After talking with her (and being harassed by a certain wonderful friend who I think dearly missed my blog), I decided to do a four-part series entitled What I've Learned from TV in which I highlight some of the spiritual truths I've been reminded of this summer.

Recently I started watching Mad Men. A combination of multiple awards and multiple people talking about how amazing this show is made me decide to try watching it last year. I hated it. I watched five or six episodes and couldn't figure out why people thought it was so good. Despite that fact, I decided to give it another chance this summer, and I'm so glad I did. I think the problem before was that I was watching Season 3, and because the show is so character-driven, you really have to start at the beginning or things won't make sense. So a few weeks ago I settled in with Season 1 and haven't looked back.

If you've never seen the show, the basic story is about a character named Don Draper who works as the creative director at an advertising agency in the 1960s. Don has a great job that he's very good at, a beautiful wife, kids, a great car, and a house in the suburbs with a red door that I absolutely love. He's good looking, charming, and every girl he ever meets basically falls all over him. There's lots of cocktails, smoking, and really great clothes. Anyone looking at him would think he had the perfect life, but Don also has a pretty big secret and an undesirable childhood that he's run away from. Basically, he has built for himself the ideal American-dream life like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and I suspect that the parallels I see between the two characters may be one reason why I enjoy the show so much.

As you watch the show and learn more about Don's past, it becomes clear that he is the archetypal self-made man. Everything he has he has worked hard for, and he works even harder it seems to keep up the facade that his life is amazing and satisfying. In the early seasons, there are several occasions when another character will ask Don why something is being done. He always responds with "it's what people do," as if the entire motivation for his life up to this point has been trying to follow the status quo because that will, eventually, lead to a sense of being fulfilled, yet the more you watch and the more he gets, the more disillusioned he becomes. And, when you get to Season 3, you start to notice that Don begins to feel guilty somewhat for his job. He creates ad campaigns selling things to people on the pretense that these things will make them happy, but he is becoming all to familiar with what a lie that is.

Watching Don Draper, I can't help but see shades of myself. I think that if I just work hard enough, do well enough, I can build for myself a rather perfect and satisfying life. I can't count how many times I've thought to myself this Spring that I've done everything right--I went to college, have a good job, I even threw in a year as a "missionary" for good measure--and yet the result isn't what it should be. Since I worked hard, aren't I supposed to be able to have the things that I want--like my own house, a fabulous wardrobe, a husband? I mean, I live in America, and isn't that what American kids are told growing up?

But watching Mad Men is a wonderful reminder that the American dream I am sometimes so upset about not seeing come true in my life is, in fact, a far cry from the satisfaction it promises. It is actually the exact opposite; it's really a trap that would leave me forever thinking I just needed one more thing or wondering why I still wasn't happy when I had checked everything off the list, like Don Draper surely would be able to do. It is a wonderful reminder that the longing of my heart will never be satisfied by a house, or a spouse, or praise and accolades at work, or the attention of others. (Or accidentally rhyming in a blog post.) It is an example of just how unsatisfying all that is and a reminder that satisfaction comes in the form of Christ alone. So as I watch, I can't help but think to myself that Don Draper would be a lot happier if he really was late for work "because [he] was spending time with [his] family reading the Bible."

(As a side note, I have been doing things other than watching tv this summer. One of which was a Bible study doing the first book in Priscilla Shirer's Seed Series. It's kind of a funny thing...most of my tv lessons line up with what I've been learning during my time in the word this summer. Who would have thought?)