Monday, February 11, 2008

When rough miles stretch on for too long, persist in wearing you down too smoothly, you begin to entertain the strangest thoughts. At first, it was like, “Times are tough, and I know we stopped having our discussions right around then.” But soon causation starts crashing into correlation and you think, “Maybe things suck because we stopped having our discussions.”

One of my favorite characters in Heroes is Sylar. Sure, I wish they could’ve fleshed out the character, made the serial killer contours a bit more nuanced with shades of good, but dialogue with media consumables is usually a one-way street. Sylar basically has the same power–the overarching, I-wish-for-infinite-wishes metapower–as Peter, only he’s far less of a pansy about it. Whereas Peter is all “Oh, shits! I guess I absorbed the “Tortured Protagonist” skill by mistake. Time to brood,” Sylar is deliberate. Crafty. Driven.

The real-life analogue to this fictional skill, at least in my mind, is being able to think clearly. It’s the framework from which all other things flow, and it’s a commodity that’s been in short supply lately. Originally I believed regular sleep was the key to a good New Year. Clearly I was wrong. I guarantee I’ve siphoned at least a dozen IQ points out of an already diminishing well this week alone, and it’s got to stop. I want those points back. The answer, I suspect, is this. Here. It’s time to get smart. Write more. Flatline less.