I tell myself I’ll watch only one episode, only one. And I always end up watching 5 or 6. What is it that makes me do that? Are my principles too weak? Or is it my will?

What lures me to keep going? Yes, they do a good job of always ending it at a point where you’re left hanging, panting would be more apt. But what is it that keeps me pressing the button? Come to think of it, I’m the same way with thrillers. I can’t stop turning the pages. I’ll fight sleep to read another chapter!

It’s not the plot. It’s not just because I want to know what happens next. It’s the people, the characters. They all somehow become me. There is something in each one of them that I can identify with. Yes, even the bad ones. There, but for the grace of God go I, said someone.

And it’s true. It’s our lot as human beings. Whatever the color of our skin. Wherever we live. Whatever our culture. That’s why my Singaporean friend can get absorbed in Korean series, my sister in Venezuelan ones, the French in American ones. The characters’ struggle is our struggle. Their pain, our pain. Their joy, our joy. To varying degrees but it’s one and the same. That’s why we can’t stop pressing that arrow that will take us to the next episode. That’s why we turn that page.

We’re all the same; different, unique, but the same. And that is why we are being pulled, groomed, manipulated to read, watch, buy, go. How much of what we do is really our decision and how much of it has been programmed by what we see and hear?

I was sitting in the cinema 2 days ago and waiting for the film to start. You have this pipe-in music that you normally don’t pay attention to. I was flipping through the Avant-Première, a magazine that gives you the synopsis, interviews, pictures of upcoming films. And I stopped reading because of the music. It repeated "F…ing" to a monotonous beat. Our kids are listening to this? Day in, day out? And we think it’s harmless? Why is this playing in the cinema? The management probably just buys or downloads music and they, being French speakers, don’t understand the words anyway. Why didn’t I complain? Tsk, Tsk, I said, and shook my head. Have I become blasé too?

I have more questions than answers and that’s life.It gets tiring because I have to figure things out. I have to stop, take stock, see where I’m going and why I’m going there and ask myself do I like where I’m going. Then it gets too much and it makes it all the more easy to press that little arrow on the remote or turn that page.