posted 2007/05/20 at 22:16
Today's been another one of those days where I've been fighting massive sleep deprivation to try to get much of anything accomplished. Saturdays are kind of my days to kick back and take things easy, but what happens is that I get so wrapped up in doing fun stuff that I lose track of time, and before I know it I've stayed up way later than I should have. (In yesterday's case, teasing my family and Jeff with the movie meme from my last post provided literally hours of fun as I watched them try to put together the pieces for each movie.) The way my body works these days, though, it can't help but wake up by a certain hour, and if I haven't fallen asleep long before then, well, I wake up and I have a day like today where I have this strange sensation like there's this warm breeze blowing just above my eyes, and everything seems just a little bit more surreal than usual. This can actually be advantageous for me -- my creativity seems to peak at times like this -- but at the same time it makes it tremendously hard to focus on anything, and I've got a lot to focus on.
This kind of takes me back to the last time I was this sleep deprived, because I remember having what I thought was this tremendous idea for this line of products that I thought was absolutely brilliant. I can even remember blogging about it, but I'm too sleep-deprived (okay, lazy) to go link to the old post right now. Anyway, I thought it was brilliant, but from past experiences I knew not to put a whole lot of trust in my judgment when I'm like this. I decided to write down all the ideas for the product that I had, and then a few days later, when I'd gotten caught back up on my sleep, I went back and looked at the notes I typed up. (Believe me, my handwriting is atrocious enough without sleep deprivation to make it worse.)
Well, here's the thing. When I took a look back at my idea with a clear head, I was still convinced it was a great idea. It's funny yet serious, base yet profound, counterculture yet highly marketable. I really latched onto something here. The problem, though, aside from the fact that I really don't have the money to finance the idea through, is that ... I'm not even sure how to put this. I think the best way I can explain it is that I'm not sure that it's something I want to be remembered for. It's not that the idea is patently offencive (though I'm sure it will offend people who, to put it bluntly, need to be offended), and it's not that the idea runs against my own beliefs or morals. It just kind of makes me uncomfortable to think that, when my time on this planet is at an end, that I will end up being remembered for this idea instead of something else. (Even this blog for all its relative smallness.)
I don't think I can explain it any better than that without giving away key details of the idea, and in the event that I decide to pursue it I think it's best that I keep mum on the details. In between all the things I've been working on here, though, I've kept going back to this idea and debating whether or not this is something I want to be associated with. I haven't been able to come to a clear decision about it when I've been able to think clearly, and I seriously doubt I'll be able to do so when I'm feeling this tired and spacy.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon