My Obsession With Sherlock

I did not discover Benedict Cumberbatch until I saw him in the modern day take of Sherlock Holmes in the BBC Sherlock Holmes series on Netflix. I'm not obsessed with Mr Cumberbatch (although he IS wonderful) , but rather, this adorable, "high functioning sociopath" that he plays. There is something so attractive to me in his own obsession with "The Game". It's the way Sherlock's mind works that amazes me. Even more specifically, it's what he calls his Mind Palace that I'm intrigued by! If you haven't seen this series, you'll need to know that The Game is whatever crime Sherlock is solving and his Mind Palace is his technique for retrieving mnemonic images from an imaginary place in his brain. This technique has been known for at least thousands of years for recalling lists of items. However, Sherlock seems to have no end to the lists that he can unlock from his mind. Now, for a personal comparison: It's a strain for me to reach into my Memory Fort to remember what I ate for dinner last night.

Ok, so how does this relate to me and my life and how I think? It actually touches me on an emotional and spiritual level. We see Sherlock reach for anything from numbers and formulas, to memories and images in his Mind Palace to solve problems. The times and situations that have been difficult in my life, I've reached for imagery to help me cope. Sometimes it feels like imagery from another lifetime, or maybe just from a book excerpt that I read as a child and attached an imaginary picture to. In the last ten years, I have purposely created images in my mind to deal with stress. The most prevalent image I have used when things get difficult, is a pair of army boots with loose boot straps. I let my mind visually "pull up the boot straps" and it sets my feet on a more stable path. Another visual image I've used when things seem to be spinning out of control, is the controls of an airplane cockpit. When life is doing a nose dive, you just pull up on the controls and remind yourself that you are the pilot! (I know! So cliche'! But it works! Try it!) I also have a crazy technique I made up to use when I have conflict with an individual person. This is maybe an embarrassing confession and I only use it in extreme situations so that I can keep a filter on my emotions and my words. I just imagine the other person duct taped to the ceiling and I poke them with a long stick. There is no harm done! No one is injured, There's no bloodshed. It really is only a fleeting image and allows me to walk away from anything that has potential to escalate in a bad way. I guess it's my version of imagining an audience in their underwear to get through a speech, but instead, it's helping me walk away from one. There are simply some times in life when you are not going to be able to get through to your "audience", so you should step away from the podium. Please use your pretend duct tape and calm down!

That was the emotional bit. Now moving on to the spiritual aspect for me. For the sake of not judging or getting in too deep about chemical addictions, i.e. the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock's opioid use (also referenced in the BBC series), I'll just briefly touch on the issue that Sherlock uses drugs to enhance his memory technique when the crime/mystery solution is elusive. The stories and the series also allude to the fact that Sherlock is just plain bored when he doesn't have a difficult case to solve and without drugs and cigarettes, his mind would EXPLODE. If you read it from Sherlock's perspective, it's a necessary evil. In any case, leaving out the aforementioned bit, Sherlock's Mind Palace technique is a meditation. He needs a quiet space to think. The people who should be duct taped to the ceiling need to leave so he can concentrate (maybe Sherlock should use my technique) and he WILL tell them to leave the room or take a separate cab. I don't have any crimes to solve, but I do have difficulties and struggles in life that need to be worked through. I do go to a quiet space to meditate and figure out how to solve my own inner mysteries. I have been known to light a candle in a dark room and center myself to be a more patient parent/friend/relative/person. Even though Sherlock is a genius and I am not, I can imagine his Mind Palace as a Meditation Room. He has skills at The Game that I do not possess, but I see him working at the same life goals that most all of us do. We just want to keep growing and get through The Game and we want to not be bored while we're doing it.

Well, I think that sums up why I have no clue (see what I did there?) how many times I've watched/listened to the Sherlock series while I'm in my workroom. I just keep it running on a loop in the background while I'm sewing, especially when I have a tight deadline and I'm stressed. It's a workroom meditation. The characters (all dynamic!) have become my friends, like a grownups' Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, if you will. (Except Mister Rogers never kept body parts in his fridge and he never had a three patch problem.) If you haven't watched the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes, I highly recommend that you do. Maybe you'll get obsessed with Sherlock too.