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My wife likes to watch old episodes of the TV show “Fantasy Island,” courtesy of Comcast Cable’s “On Demand” feature. A recent episode involved a couple who wanted to escape all of the ills and rudeness of contemporary society and go back to the “good old days.” They felt that things in the past had to be better than things right now. Mr. Roarke, in his seemingly infinite wisdom, decided to place them in colonial Salem. What these people found was a society overburdened by rules and harsh punishments, all seemingly at the whim of the leader of the town. The climax of the story, of course, was when the island guests were to be burned at the stake. The lesson learned was that things were not always better yesterday and that things are not as bad today as we think they are.

As human beings, we all have our own thoughts, desires, and feelings. These are things inside of our existence that are private to us, but some of these internal items can be betrayed by our facial expressions or any number of other physiological characteristics. If I were to look across the room at you and you were sad I might see a painful expression carved into your brow or I might even see tears streaming down the sides of your cheeks, but these outer expressions can be deceptive – we can find many people gifted in the art of manipulating their outward appearance simply by turning on the television. We can also spot the people in the same medium that are not as talented. We are able to judge the accuracy of an actor’s portrayal of a certain emotion by our own experiences that can either be the emotions we have personally felt or the emotions we have watched in others. However we have developed this skill it is unquestionable that it exists. If it did not, then our televisions would be empty caverns filled with the echoes of emotionless monotony. On the bright side, though, we would probably have a lot more time on our hands.