Stupid Good

I was going to get up and get going early today. I managed the "up" part, but the "going" part, not so much. Ah well, it was only an arbitrary deadline.

I've decided that knitting is actually a good part of my creative process. I spent the afternoon reading/revising on the book, and then when I was knitting at night, I found that the answers to tricky problems or ideas for what to do popped into my head. Generally, any kind of repetitive task is good for that sort of thing. It uses just enough brainpower to keep you alert and distract the conscious brain, and that allows the subconscious to get to work. Doing dishes also works, but knitting is more fun. Though there is the danger that the idea that pops into you head will then require conscious thought, and you then find yourself knitting the wrong row and having to undo it all and start over again. And that's with color-coded stitch markers that should remind me of what row I'm on.

Rewatching the first season of A Game of Thrones reminds me of one of the reasons that series can be frustrating. Namely, the Stupid! It Burns! It's the most literal example of Too Stupid to Live. I get that they're trying to portray nobility and the consequences of it when you're not dealing with people who function by the same moral code, but there are cases here that go far beyond that. I doubt that anyone would blame a cop, for instance, who didn't call the criminal and give him a heads up that he'd discovered what the criminal was up to and wanted to give him the opportunity to confess to the judge before the cop gave the judge the evidence. Most of the early part of that series is the good guys being flat-out stupid and the bad guys not even having to break a sweat to take advantage of it. I think it does get better as the series progresses, especially in the third book, which will be what we see on TV this year. By then, the worst of the idiots have weeded themselves out with their Darwin Award-worthy behavior and the survivors have wised up a bit, so there's no longer such a sharp contrast between stupid good and clever evil.

I actually have a rant brewing about the way good and bad are often treated or perceived in today's entertainment, but I was supposed to have been at my parents' house by now, so I should probably either start packing or make the go/no go decision.