sleep deprivation results in...

when i was young i had a blanket, it was yellow and had a brown dog on it. it wasn't expensive, it wasn't particularly nice or even that clean most of the time, but until i was four or five it was never a considerable distance away from me. people would call such a talisman a security blanket, as if to imply there was some insecurity in a child that is resolved by having access to a familiar object, but this was different. i didn't feel insecure or incomplete without my blanket, i, instead, felt guilty about the blankets feelings of neglect or abandonment. i actually felt bad about leaving my blanket behind... that's just weird.

perhaps it's the result of my being incredibly sensitive and caring about the people and (ahem) things around me, but more than likely it was just an obsession that was developed out of habit. an obsessive personality can be a dangerous thing. i say "can be" because it also has it's uses. one of my favorite obsessives is tom morello.

morello is known to most as the innovative guitar player for Rage Against the Machine and later Audioslave (arguably the same band minus Zak DeLaRocha), but before he was the socially informed, anarchist rocker morello was a sociology student at harvard university. this ivy league iconoclast picked up the guitar relatively late in the game, in his late teens, but his passion was undeniable. one day a friend and fellow picker suggested, "tom, if you practice one hour a day, you WILL get better." so an hour a day it was, every day, and morello did improve.

but i have not told all... morello logically deduced that if his playing improved in an hour a day, two hours a day would improve it twice as fast. After several weeks he was surprised to find that he was improving considerably more than twice as fast on the double time, so he stepped it up the three hours, four hours, five hours, and finally six hours a day. come hell or high water, tom morello practiced guitar for six hours a day, everyday while he completed a degree in sociology at Harvard. his obsession was such that despite 103 degree fever and a final exam the next morning, he was obliged to begin his regimen at 2:00 am in order to satisfy his routine. it was this grueling training that gave him unbelievable prowess and ingenuity, making him instantly recognizable in his music.

i wish my own obsessiveness was that focused, but it has help me in several areas.

while i did, at one point, practice guitar for up to four hours a day, clearly my sessions weren't as productive, but it, doubtless, built the foundation for the meager understanding i have today. i have been known to adjust a kick drum mic almost constantly for an entire show, or even an entire weekend, until i find the EXACT sound i like. i have, in the past, written long, wordy articles about completely random thoughts and blurbs that run through my head and publish them on semi-public forums just to try and remember how to write.

besides, until someone slaps me with a restraining order, how could my obsession get me into trouble...