A few weeks ago, I started watching the multipart science fiction show 3 Body Problem on Netflix. It’s an absorbing and original story about a future invasion of Earth by an alien planet, and it’s got enough twists and turns to keep me riveted for four episodes.
The snag is that 3 Body Problem has eight episodes in all, and when I stopped watching after the fourth, I promised myself I’d pick it right back up, but of course I didn’t. Eventually, maybe, I’ll get back into it. But if I’m being honest with myself, I know there’s no way that’s going to happen. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the show, it’s just that other things have moved front and center. And that means 3 Body Problem will remain an open loop in my life, like Prime Video’s Reacher or, for that matter, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past — just another thing I keep meaning to finish but never, ever will.
Sometimes it seems like most of the things I do and read during the day are open loops, endlessly circulating around my brain with no resolution in sight. For instance, I am aware, dimly, of the many legal proceedings now in process against former President Donald Trump — the front page of the newspaper resurfaces these in my consciousness every few days — but I have long since given up trying to keep track of what’s going in Georgia, or Miami, or Washington, D.C., or the Southern District of New York. At some point, I know these will all be resolved and wrapped up, and my feeling is, better to wait until then to pay close attention. Wait, in other words, until the show is over and the last episode has dropped and then figure out what it was all about.
Apparently, a few weeks ago, federal agents raided the homes and offices of rap impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs. According to reports, they were looking for evidence in a sex trafficking investigation and lurid reports emerged about Diddy’s complicated finances and rumors about possibly inappropriate relationships with underage people of both sexes. All of this seemed like exactly the kind of juicy and shocking celebrity gossip I usually can’t get enough of. But after a few days, my attention drifted somewhere else and the multipart Diddy show running in my head was replaced. At some point, I’m sure, there will be a definitive final verdict on all of it. In the meantime, it’s just another open loop circling around my distracted brain.
“Everyone knows the stock market is in the toilet,” I said to someone yesterday. Unfortunately for me, that someone is in the financial markets and quickly reminded me that I’m an idiot. “Actually,” he said, “both the Dow and the S&P are up.”
I couldn’t remember why, exactly, I had it in my head that they were down, but I think I read something a while ago that claimed that the outlook was bad, that the trends were negative, that the markets were “jittery” or “volatile” or one of those words they always use, and I just decided, OK, markets are down, I’ll wait until there’s a sense one way or the other before I do anything. Another open loop, open looping around my brain.
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Along with the Trump prosecutions, the Diddy investigation, and the financial markets, I am also unclear on what’s happening with NATO and the Pennsylvania presidential polling data. Also: someone is buying Paramount Pictures — I don’t know who, but I’m sure they’ll let me know when it’s done — and the current speaker of the House of Representatives is either about to be ousted or safely ensconced. China continues to be a lopsided and untrustworthy trading partner although it looks like its economy is about to collapse, so I’m waiting for that to happen (or not) before I take a definitive stand either way. Open loops, all.
Before last week, I would catch myself wondering idly if the political movement called No Labels was going to field a presidential and vice presidential candidate for the November 2024 election. That open loop was closed, finally, last week when they announced that they were not. With that item crossed off my wait-and-see list, I had a little more room in my brain, so I thought briefly about returning to 3 Body Problem, but then the new unemployment numbers came out and they were extremely upbeat, pending the revisions that always occur a few weeks or months later. And so I’m just going to let those spin around inside my head for a while until somebody tells me once and for all if the economy is good or bad.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.
