It was a pretty normal quiet Friday today. I did not get up early to write, though. I am kind of faltering at that right now. My mind feels chronically empty.

Since baseball season ended, I told myself I would use my time better in the evenings. So far, I think I have watched four top-100 movies from Netflix. And tonight, after watching a movie, I watched the end of the Bucks-Spurs game on ESPN. I guess my boycott of entertainment hasn’t started yet.

I wish I had the willpower to just sell everything around me I did not need. And to unplug for all the online distractions.

Tonight’s film had a decent message in it. The movie, “Collateral Beauty”, was selected because I like Will Smith, and because it was on Netflix’s top films list, but I knew nothing about it.

(Spoiler Alert)

Smith is a charismatic advertising exec/guru who builds a sizable firm in Manhattan with his best friend, and in the film’s beginning, we see Smith addressing his staff on the three things that make people make purchases, and that drive selling: death, love, and time. We jump ahead a few years in his life, and he is on the verge of madness. In time, we learn that he lost a daughter to cancer, and unable to cope with her loss, he basically comes to the office to build domino chains he then knocks down after a few days, and otherwise, his life has disappeared into shadows. He does not talk to his staff or friends. He bikes around NYC. It’s a good attempt by a film to deal with grief and depression.

Early on in the film, Smith writes three letters to three recipients, which his friends intercept and use as a means to try and reach their struggling colleague. Eventually, three characters confront Smith in human form, and as a consequence of those encounters, Smith is able to finally cope and change.

The three characters are love, death, and time.

We all want love.

We all want to avoid death.

We all have so much time to use as we wish.

For me, killing my TV habit would give me more time for more important pastimes, including exercise, which we need to push away disease and death. It’s also easier to grow closer with others if you are spending time with them, instead of your TV.

I’m hoping one of these days I will learn to quit wasting so much time. If there is still time.