OLIVIA COLLETTE

If people like this actually existed (and I suppose some do), they’d be murderous. But I’m still fascinated with characters who think in maths like Dr. Manhattan.

I can’t say for sure if his character is written realistically, but I love the fact that someone’s bothered to imagine how anyone who exists outside of linear time would experience reality. They would certainly become detached, and as The Watchmen suggests, a little bored. Which begs the question, how interesting are our lives, anyway?

I’m not saying our lives are insignificant, but I do enjoy those real-life moments when I’m suddenly humbled by the awesome largess or excellence of something else. I often get that feeling when flying over the Rockies, or more recently, when I saw the Grand Canyon. Of course my life matters, as does everybody else’s, but life is also randomly unfair and nature is utterly imbalanced. The odds of surviving should be nil, but here we are. That’s certainly meaningful, but the fact that we all have the ability to die suddenly, and in a second, also makes it all seem so arbitrary.

And if we occupied ourselves with that sort of thinking all the time, wouldn’t we turn blue as well?