Entertainment: A Soft Cage

Entertainment

The word begins with an invitation.

Enter.

Its root does not promise joy.

It promises to hold.

We call it entertainment,

as if it were light,

as if it were freedom.

But listen to the word closely.

Enter.

And be held.

From the old tongues, it meant to keep,

to maintain,

to occupy.

Not to awaken; but to contain.

To entertain

is to be taken inside a circle of light,

a room we step into willingly,

walls padded with color and sound,

screens glowing like hearth fires we no longer gather around

but kneel before;

alone, together, apart.

Movement slows

and attention is gently bound.

It does not grab us violently.

It cradles us.

Holds our gaze.

Holds our time.

Holds our unfinished thoughts until they dissolve.

No chains.

Only glow.

Images feed on your stillness.

Stories drink your hours.

The mind, once wild,

learns the comfort of repetition.

You are not imprisoned.

You are maintained.

We say we are relaxing,

but often we are simply being paused.

Paused from wondering.

Paused from listening to the quieter currents beneath the noise.

Paused from the uncomfortable task of becoming.

Hours pass like water diverted into channels someone else designed.

Stories repeat.

Patterns echo.

We laugh when prompted, rage on cue, cry where the arc demands it.

And slowly, subtly,

we begin to speak in borrowed sentences,

dream in recycled images,

desire what has already been decided for us.

The mind, once a river,

becomes a loop.

Entertainment promises escape,

but escape into what?

Curated worlds where nothing truly risks us,

where endings are guaranteed,

where silence is forbidden.

Silence remembers too much.

In silence, the current returns;

unowned, unfiltered, alive.

So the screens hum.

So the voices never stop.

So consciousness stays folded,

contained,

entertained.

Leave often.

This is not a rejection of art,

of story,

of beauty shared.

It is a remembering.

The door is never locked.

Only forgotten.