Saturday, May 22, 2010

My mind rebels at stagnation

Dear friend,
I've not been blogging, even though I've been doing things that I usually choose to write about, for example; seeing movies. I've seen at least Disney/Nature's Oceans (skip it, it sucks, though the footage is pretty), Sherlock Holmes (wow, that was fun! Why haven't I bought it yet?), Iron Man (fun again, but not something I'd buy), and Iron Man 2 (I had just as much fun with that as I did with the first. But I saw them on the same day, so they kind of melded into a single, extremely long movie in my head).

Really, I'm writing now because I noticed something about myself. I like mystery shows, books, and games though I suck at figuring out the solution. I think I know why, though. I care more about the characters than the mystery. I feel as though I am missing the point, but I don't care since I'm enjoying it anyway.
I noticed this when I was watching Sherlock Holmes. My Dad had ordered the movie on Pay per View, but didn't tell me, since he didn't know I wanted to see it. Since PPV is usually a 24 hour deal, in which time you can watch as many times as you like, I decided to watch the next evening. The film cut off just before the end. I wasn't torn up about not seeing the solution to the mystery at all. I wasn't too concerned about seeing the end because I knew (spoiler, I guess) Watson was still alive. (End of the fake, silly spoiler)
Some would look at that as a sign of a very poorly written mystery. Maybe it was, but I've almost never bothered to try to follow mystery plots anyway. A good deal of the shows I watch are either cop or detective shows. Psych and dueSouth especially, but even Chuck and Burn Notice have the same sort of elements. Most people who watch LOST are talking about the need to know answers by the time the finale airs tomorrow. I don't really care. I mostly want to know what's going to happen to these characters, rather than what occurred to make all these things happen.
In other words, I care more about the characters than the stories.

Having realized this, I am beginning to read a lot more mysteries. I even went out and bought a copy of the entire Sherlock Holmes. I've read most of the first novel already, and I'm loving it. All I'm focusing on are the characters of Holmes and Watson. I have tried reading Holmes before, and most of it just went over my head, and I didn't get the hype. I'm catching on now. I find it much easier to follow the story by focusing on why Holmes is doing what he's doing rather than focusing on what he's doing.

I hope all this enthusiastic ramble made sense. I'm just happy to figure out one of the ways my brain works. I don't want to focus on a problem; I want to focus on how the problem affects the person.

(That reads like a soundbite...)