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.
Soon, when I reach the endpaper of my current read, the stage will be set for the life and times of Mark Twain, as told by the man himself through pages awash in wit and semicolons. This will complete my literary sandwich–a meaty title followed by lighter fare followed by another meaty title–and prime the canvas for the next triumvirate.
To backtrack a bit, though, and actually recount things sequentially, the first substantive title was A Confederacy of Dunces, which was a choice work or, in the parlance of professional critique, a blazing, rip-roaring comedic thrillfest guaranteed to grab the edge of your seat and rock it. It’s a fiction produced in a sad and fascinating context. It’s a Pulitzer winner that deserved to win.
One topic we’ll revisit this year is this idea of greatness. How do you produce a great work? How many people, if any, need to deem it great to confer quality upon it? How much time needs to elapse for something to be certifiably good? How do you distinguish true greatness from delusion? These are by no means new questions, and I imagine the Greek thinkers of old have volumes of insight to share, but until they can deliver a bound five-page digest on my desk every Tuesday morning, well, we’ll just have to answer the questions ourselves.
Resolutions, and the production and maintenance thereof, were kicked to the curb sometime last year, probable victims of a ruthless round of Lent. We’re talking all kinds of resolutions here, especially the New Year’s varietal, and renewal, rather than resolve, is the theme for this quarter.
The recent diagnosis has been grim. I feel listless, a boat without a sail. Restless, plagued by a recurring dream about tornadoes. I am Popeye looking for spinach, Mario digging for mushrooms, Lindsay Lohan reaching for the rubbing alcohol. Much of it can be attributed to holiday excess, with odd hours and consecutive days of gift basket food, restaurant food, and almost-food, the specialty output of Long John Silver’s. That’s why renewal is so critical at this juncture–to find my center and reclaim that clarity of purpose.
The first challenge is to figure out sleep, particularly duration and bedtime. I’m not convinced eight hours is optimal, as evidenced by the 50 mg of I feel like shit generated by yesterday night. And although sleeping early, like right now, may appear to be a sound recommendation, suddenly regaining consciousness at 5 AM would be unnatural. I’m thinking more along the lines of 11 PM, 8.5 hours, and the belief that 8.5 hours matter.