Watching Seinfeld for the first time

Sometimes, more often than not, living in this hectic, Pandemic driven world, where everyone is coming and going without interacting—where the fear and the pain and sadness is pervading every aspect of society, I just need a break.

Going back in a time capsule and traveling back to something that resembles what America used to feel like before the early 2000’s came around isn’t a possibility, so I decided to finally watch Seinfeld. Yes, I know—- that strange, old comedy show from the late 80’s….Seinfeld. But, I felt it had to be done. The bandaid of media refusal had to be taken off at some point. And, being here in the crazy, frantic year of 2021 made me finally take that leap.

Also, I had watched Seinfeld’s Bee Movie 🐝 with my children and I thought that though it was pretty weird, it had a creative twist but also funny in it’s own dry, observable type of manner.

I had never seen this show before, but of course, Seinfeld is such a greatly known series amongst popular culture, comedy legends and the media, I definitely had my run-ins with the familiar type of witty, observational comedy that Jerry Seinfeld brings——and I have to say, diving into it, it was refreshing and almost the perfect way to de-toxify my overloaded brain and my frazzled nerves, emotionally, it made me finally feel a bit hopeful yet sad.

The irreverent “show about nothing,” was, to me, nothing less than a rejuvenation of spirit and truly living moment to moment, not worrying of political issues or dividing subjects that has caused our society to crumble and flail into an indistinguishable oblivion.

The episodes that I enjoyed the most seemed to have the least plot to the overall narrative and what really made me get that nostalgic feeling was how real it felt.

Going to do your laundry with a friend, discussing what kind of people go to laundromats, what they bring, how prepared or unprepared they are, going to a restaurant and waiting for your table(the whole episode they are waiting for their table as other people are called up), all the most mundane and everyday things we all do, but on TV. Plain old everyday stuff. And that felt new, with all the new dramatic shows that have non-stop action and over the top dialogue, it felt like me. Like my life.

A life I so longed to have; a nostalgic feeling for something you can’t quite put your finger on or missing someone you hadn’t heard from or seen in a long, long time. Having friends show up to your place unannounced, going out to parties or to the cinema—-roaming around New York just for fun or because you are bored, that just can’t happen anymore.

A film I dearly appreciate and love is Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre. Also set in a perfectly preserved 1980’s New York, it has little to no plot to it. Just two old friends meeting up for dinner, to catch up and talk.

Just …talk.

That’s the whole thing.

But, to me, it is one of the most captivating and interesting things to watch. Their histories, past, their woes and pains, their dreams and their follies, their fears of life and of death and how society isn’t up to a standard that can hold up to humanity’s salvation(philosophically, possibly literally)—-it all feels like more than it seems.

That’s because, “nothing,” really is something very important. We all just forgot how important it all was. Living day to day in fear of our lives, through society’s damaging lens, the horrible situations we seem to never escape, the media and the news dragging us all down in hysteria and horrible headlines, of school shootings and more variants of Covid-19 coming to light——we all need a lot more nothing in our lives. Don’t you agree?

Because, all the nothings we go through, all the little things and tiny pieces of our life, the little moments—-those are what matter to us in the end.