I’m from a small village that lies between two mountains in Maine. I still remember the day when television appeared in our lives. We villagers all gathered together in the middle of town and stood surrounding the glowing box, which presented us with a barrage of moving images: There were men with firearms, women in bikinis, and other things that I had never seen before. I was instantly hooked on this technological drug. From the second they plugged it in, television gained complete control of my senses.
I soon persuaded my parents to buy a set of our own. Right away, they knew that something was wrong: I could not take my eyes off the screen. I watched TV nonstop. I had to drop out of school, because I feared that if I left the television, even for a moment, I might miss a good program.
My favorite shows were the ones about policemen and secret government agents who were always shooting weapons at people and using violence to get the job done. I would mimic their behavior and imagine myself as one of them. I abandoned and forgot my own identity: My only reality was the TV screen.
Then a genuine tragedy took place. One year, for a gift on my birthday, my parents gave me an authentic-looking squirt gun. I filled it up at the kitchen sink; my intention was to emulate a scene that I had watched on a recent episode. I took my water gun to the crowded center of town and began spraying. The people were screaming: everyone was getting soaked. But then my favorite TV character leaped out of the crowd holding a machine gun — just as he was known to do on his show — and he emptied all of his bullets straight into my person.
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