We live in cycles. (Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.)

Reyes is in a wildly positive cycle.

If we look at the world around us, we see that people are not the same every day. They go through periods where they feel a certain way, and then one day they feel differently. But no one notices. I find this omission strange.

For example, take a baseball player who has 22 multiple-hit games in a row. He's on fire! But then a day comes along where he strikes out four times in one game. The cycle is over. And then what happens? He does not resume his hitting streak the day after the strike-outs. That cycle is done. Instead, he goes into a slump and the slump goes on for whatever period of time . . . until one day he hits! And then he's on a hitting streak again. C'mon, people. There's a message here. We are cyclical creatures.

Think about your own life. You have weeks (even months) when you're really up and feel competent and life is good. And then one day you wake up and everything seems impossible -- and you become stuck in this mood for a time. I don't understand why we never talk about this. It's all around us.

Might it not be sensible to figure out a technical means to track these cycles? If you knew where in a cycle an employee was, for instance, you could assign duties commensurate with the employee's real-time abilities. In baseball this would mean including the guy in the night's roster if he was on a roll, or letting him sit the game out if he wasn't. Surely this is a physical thing that can be tracked. Take it off the baseball field and consider an airport. Perhaps a particular worker shouldn't play air traffic controller today if his cycle says he's dull and listless. Maybe the guy could collate tonight instead.

So okay, maybe the knowledge wouldn't be that simple to use. But doesn't it strike you as odd that our culture doesn't even note this obvious fact of life? Sure seems weird to me.