In The Natural, Roy Hobbs is a gifted baseball player who wants to use his God-given talent to make a name for himself. However, he’s brutally shot in the prime of his life and forced to put off becoming a baseball player for nearly two decades. As it turns out, he has a tendency to be tempted by beautiful, mysterious women.

Later in the film, he finally gets a chance to excel in baseball, and that gets the attention of a ruthless businessman who wants Roy’s team to lose for financial reasons. He tries to tempt Roy with heaps of money, like he had another star player. But Roy rejects the offer of money. That isn’t his weakness. Women are. So the businessman employs that tactic, and it works for a time.

Thankfully, by the end of the film, Roy overcomes his weakness and defeats his enemies. How does he do it? A lot of it comes down to the love of a good woman. His childhood love believes in him, and she inspires him to rise up to the goodness he’s capable of. He has to believe that he’s more than just a great baseball player. What really counts is that he’s a good man, a good father, and a good husband.

From One Addiction to Another

I’m pretty sure I have an addictive personality. From an early age, I feared that I would be bad with money. So I forced myself to save and avoid as many frivolities as possible. When my enemy learned that money wasn’t what would tempt me, he tried other things until he found what worked.

It kind of feels like I go from one addiction to another, and they’re things that people probably wouldn’t consider normal things to be addicted to. Instead of gambling and alcohol, it’s movies and YouTube. I was addicted to buying movies for a time. When I overcame that addiction, I turned to playing video games. When I overcame that addiction, I turned to watching YouTube videos. That last one has been the hardest for me to overcome.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these activities. They’re fine in moderation. But when they become compulsive, they enter the realm of the dangerous. My loving wife has patiently helped me through each of my addictions. She encouraged me, saw the best in me, and helped me believe that I could do better. The Natural is right that a good woman is incredibly helpful to a struggling man.

My Experience Giving Up YouTube

In mid-December, I decided to stop watching YouTube almost completely. I’ve listened to a little music and I watched a few Christmas-related things on it, but other than that I’ve avoided using that app or visiting that website for the past month.

As a result, I found that I had much more time to do other activities. I actually enjoyed the quiet of performing tasks without having someone in my ear at all times. It made it much easier to hear my wife speaking to me. She has a quiet voice, so I often had to ask her to repeat herself before. Now I usually understand what she’s saying the first time.

I have felt such relief without the constant noise of what I had been listening to. So much less stress and anxiety. I’ve learned that the algorithms on YouTube and other social media are powerful. They are able to keep me under their control because they figure out what to show me to keep me clicking their links and watching their content. It turns out that I am easily manipulable.

The only way I know how to escape that grasp is to avoid it entirely. By placing myself outside the realm of YouTube, I can’t be influenced by it. I’ll surely miss out on a lot of excellent videos, but that’s the price I have to pay. Of course, I’ll still visit there from time to time to get a video clip for my Deja Reviewer articles. However, I won’t linger longer than I have to.

Hopefully No More Addiction

It’s frustrating to become addicted to things so easily. I wish I could become addicted to something healthy like exercising, writing, or spending time with my family. That is probably not a wise wish, though. I already love all of those things, so perhaps I shouldn’t want to become addicted to them since that word seems to denote an unhealthy obsession.

I am desirous to live my life free of addiction to anything that is obviously bad or seemingly innocuous. Sadly, I don’t know exactly how to do that. It appears that everything can be addictive. Perhaps we are all addicted to something. After all, it’s only natural. But if Roy Hobbs can overcome his addictions to women and fame, maybe that means I can overcome my proclivity towards addiction.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

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