In six words
First off, Ben Carson’s mother had a solid truth about TV in Gifted Hands. Something she insistently drilled into the lives of her two sons. “Watching TV lets you watch others as they make money.” Hard nailed…. A childhood cliche and in adulthood this has become a nagging thought whenever I turn on the teli. And just how would you measure ‘too much?’ And what about reading others?
But, watching TV is overally beneficial you know. Besides the news updates, (do people still do this?), and the entertainment, I have found movies helpful in building my photography, animation and video editing skills. Well you’ve to learn from somewhere…
Then there’s the downward spiral of TV addiction. GOT and Netflix got us here. ð Talk of all the milestones we could’ve covered after the last episodes!
No wonder Sonya Carson had to ration the boys’ TV time (2 programs a week). To give them more time at the library, of course. And am thinking of doing the same. Because there is something extra with a book. It’s just hard to put a word on it… Could it be imagination? Or the fact that it sounds right hearing words bounce loud in your head? Can you really compare this feeling to another?
Dr. Ben Carson said, âI not only saw and felt the difference my mother made in my life, I am still living out that difference as a man.â
Sonya Carson-Honoring Motherhood, Soul Magazine
According to Carson, his mother devised a plan for her sons to curb TV time and write two book reports a week instead. Working as a domestic for successful families, she had noticed that they read far more than they watched television. The required book reports were turned in to Sonya who would mark them up with checkmarks and highlights.
âYears later we realized her marks were a ruse,â wrote Ben Carson in an NPR commentary on parenting. âMy mother was illiterate; she had only received a third-grade education.â
Sonya Carson, Adventist Review
Making promises I’d struggle to keep:
Will switch off TV to read.
For Ben, regular reading was the beginning of a fruitful academic career that eventually took him to Yale, and to John Hopkins University Hospital, where he worked as director of Neuropediatric Surgery from 1984 to his retirement in 2013.
This is not so far apart from the little experience on how reading has influenced my writing. See, whenever I spare some time to read, I get new ways to express my thoughts. As a result, I find myself writing. And in the weeks that go by with me barely touching a book, there’s hardly ever anything to write about. Because the inspiration dried out. I get the words to tell a story alright. And I feel them buzzing all over my head but then the plug to lead me into how to form the flow seems to come alive only by the flip of another page.
Sonya Carson went to be with the Lord on November 6, 2017 at 88.  Although she came from an impoverished background with very little formal education, she somehow understood how success was achieved in our society.  She left a great legacy of two successful sons.  Dr. Ben Carson said,  âIf anyone had a reason to make excuses, it was her, but she absolutely refused to be a victim and would not permit us to develop the victim mentality either”.
If I were to write in order to live, then reading would be the food I eat. And I guess you’d think this leaves no room for excuses. Totally agree. But you haven’t met my monkey brain yet. It earned that name. ð
Is there anything you can relate to? Kindly leave a six word story to rhyme with mine.
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