For the most part, like tonight, I watched a documentary This American Life", which in its brilliant perspectives and eye-opening sequences has caused me to feel both small and disrupted in my experiences. I was touched by the ironic conversations and story-lines but also, by the irreplacable humanity of the entire show. Particularly of these ordinary people who themselves were not so ordinary in the culmination of the things that they've experienced.
In other words, their stories would have been unspoken without the show. For example, I probably would have lived never know that there are people who take pictures of the sun at 6PM every day in hopes of capturing religious iconography. It's heartbreaking and real and makes you realize how limited even your peripheral visions can be. In their own unique ways, the show seems to allow them to show their unusual stories as the audience relates them to their strange but endearing perspectives. I have to say, I haven't felt strongly towards a program in such a long time, it's like animal planet but with people in our society's social wilderness - watching them resembles the enormity and alienation that I feel watching bird's migrate or polar bears hunt for food.
