I do a “retreat” of sorts for two months of each year during the winter. During that time, I live a fairly meditative quiet life. I also watch Netflix every night, whereas the rest of the year I do not watch television. I enjoy it very much, and it is a special treat to look forward to during this retreat time. That time has passed now in the early months of 2025.
What do I watch? To each his own, but since I love architecture and design, I watch a high end real estate series out of Paris that I just love. Since I don’t travel abroad much, I enjoy armchair travel and this show provides that for me. This year there was an abundance of Christmas season movies a la Hallmark style and I think I caught every one of them. But after I’d gone through these faves, I felt I was beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I decided to give “Eternal Love” a try. It was described as the most watched series ever, out of China, and has had 50 billion views, the most watched TV series in the world! Wow. The book it is based upon was written in 2015. It had 56 episodes, each about 45 minutes long, and I had to read subtitles.
If you like questioning the structure of reality, the meaning of life, and Eastern philosophies like Chan and Taoism, this series offers much to contemplate. There are two planes of existence, the mortal world, and the heavenly realm. One sees that the heavenly realm is far from perfect as there are some despicable characters residing there. When these heavenly beings have something to learn, they are sent to the mortal world, though a short visit back to heaven is a very long time on Earth, i.e. a day in heaven is about a year on Earth. When they go to Earth their memories are erased so they don’t know they are in a test, but they still are drawn to their true callings. If they do well in their Earthly test, they can become a god and ascend higher. Between realms the connections of spirit are painfully slim. There are whims unrealized, as two ships passing in the night. The higher gods or beings are heroic and fearless. They don’t hesitate to give their lives for the greater good. They function on the level of energy they’ve acquired. There is (Taoist-style) magic everywhere, flying, magic fans, saving a being in a lotus flower, and on and on. If a heavenly being becomes purified enough it goes “into the nothingness”. The pace of the show is slow, so one lives in the moment while watching. The series spans eons of time. Time continues so is relatively unimportant. There was more to it than might meet the eye when it comes to depth and meaning.
A couple of years ago I watched the older series on Bruce Lee which also was one of the most watched TV series in the world with about as many episodes. To date, these two series rank high on my list of favorite TV shows I’ve watched (though I don’t watch a fraction of the TV the average American watches).
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