When the Stakes are High

Recently I've been watching (recorded) Grey's Anatomy a lot. It's a hospital-themed story centered around 5 medical interns and their life in Seattle. Almost every episode has a central idea that the story evolves around, such as personal boundaries, karma, or superstition. And it's easy to identify with the characters in the story, because we experience similar things day in, day out.

When the stakes are high

One particular thing I like about hospital-themed stories is that they frequently involve life and death. We all make mistakes, and there are always things beyond our control. For doctors, mistakes and surprises often cost someone else's life. (So expect a lot of emotionally intense scenes for all your viewing pleasure!) We all know that we tend to make poor judgments when we take things too seriously, become too emotionally aroused, or get too personal. Sometimes their mentor has to remind the interns to keep a distance from their patients; otherwise their attachment to the patients may prevent them from making the right decisions.

Don't we all have this kind of fight everyday? We make trade-offs between doing what we want and doing what's right. We bruise our pride for the greater good. We worry about whether we're showing the best of ourselves so much that we fail to enjoy the time together with someone we like a lot.

Eventually, we all know we have to learn from these mistakes and the unexpected and move on.

The devil inside

One of my favorite characters in Grey's Anatomy is Alex, played by Justin Chambers. Alex is arrogant, insensitive, and becomes easily jealous. But don't get me wrong. I like him because he's a reminder that we all have these traits, no matter how small the portions might be.

There's nothing bad about the traits themselves. But they tend to invoke anger and defensive behaviors of other people. Depending on what we truly want, acting out these traits, sometimes the only thing we end up with is the thrill we get from acting mindlessly on our impulses. However, there are usually healthier way to show our feelings and turn the impulses into positive energy. And perhaps it's because he reinforces these ideas in my mind and allows me to accept the devil inside myself, it's always a relief to watch him just being himself.

Happy to be an addict

I bought a portable TV just to watch the X-Files when I was serving in the army. I called the TV station after I missed an episode of Ally McBeal to figure out whether they'd repeat that episode. (And trust me, it was a big deal for me to make such calls before.) I'm so glad that I've found a new favorite.

I actually started watching it only a few weeks ago, and I missed all the episodes before that. I had been watching the old episodes almost everyday. Now that I've finished all of them, I have to wait for the new one to come out every Sunday, and the wait is hard to get used to after a period of intense viewing. It's a bit like the food I've been eating recently, but that's another story...