Monday, January 31, 2011

When You’re Alone: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

 

In “Modus Operandi,” I mentioned that you should stay around people as much as possible, because the Slender Man tends to avoid going after people in crowds.  Well, as I believe I mentioned in a recent post, I’m completely alone now.  I’m one of maybe ten people still on campus.  I haven’t seen anyone in my dorm all day.  To make things worse, my car is broken down, it’s cold outside, and there’s a break, so I can’t get far, it’s unpleasant to go anywhere in the first place, and whenever I go out, it’s difficult to get back in.  So staying in the dorm is the simplest option.  Unfortunately, it also means that I’m completely alone.  I’m sure that everyone has times when they’re completely alone, whether they want to be or not.  They’re unavoidable.  So I’m posting to tell you how to get past them.

The most important thing to do is to avoid thinking about the Slender Man.  For those of you who missed Robert’s White Elephant story (I had to look up the cached pages myself), the magic carpet wouldn’t fly if anyone thought about White Elephants.  Of course, everyone thought about White Elephants when they heard this, and it never flew again.  It was all an elaborate analogy for the Slender Man, of course.  Thinking about him draws him to you, and you can’t permanently forget about him anymore.  You can forget about him temporarily, though. 

The best way to do that is to read a book.  Books are a bit harder to immediately get lost in, but once you do get lost in them, they really, really suck you in.  It’s because your mind has to do so much more to create a picture of what’s going on.

Watching movies is next best thing, and TV shows after that.  These are harder to get fully drawn into, though, just because you can listen without watching, which takes you out of it just a bit.  Make sure you get something that’s upbeat, to lift your spirits and engross you.  Thinky series are good, but they tend to be incredibly depressing.  When given the choice between Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion, for the love of God, go for the former!  Being distracted is a bit less important than being happy.

Being productive is also good.  If you have homework or some hands-on creative project to work on, it’s good to do that.  Homework is best, as creative endeavors usually require abstract thinking, and what starts as a simple sketch of a scantily-clad animesque catgirl can easily turn into a scrawling mess of a faceless guy when you let your mind wander.  Something like a model kit or papercraft is better, as you’re concentrating on a particular task instead of going where your mind lets you.

Most importantly, know what to avoid.  Avoid, at all costs, anything that will remind you of the Slender Man.  It’s hard to know which works will, but you should avoid anything that has a character even vaguely reminiscent of the Slender Man.  The Nightmare Before Christmas is definitely out.  The Harry Potter movies are out, too, due to Voldemort’s appearance (in one of the movies, I could swear there was a dream sequence where he’s standing in a suit and doing some sort of Slendy-esque headjerk).  And…well, Jekyll and Hyde is also out, for reasons that will become clear soon (and not just because of me).  There are a lot of other things that are bad choices, and there are a lot of other things that are good choices.  I’m not about to provide a list, since there are infinite possibilities, but it might be a good idea to briefly look something up before you start, and hope that there’s nothing that might trigger an association.

Well, that’s how to keep your thoughts off of him while you’re alone.  Of course, that’s only half the battle.  I’ll cover the other half in another post in the near future.

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