From the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, we get the following advice: “Intensity: Give 100% 110% is impossible. Only idiots recommend that.” or as a motorcycle buddy of mine likes to say, “Twist the throttle and send it…” (Of course, I don’t think he has a single joint that isn’t mechanical now.) Certain types of people don’t just do; they do with abandon, with our day’s word: intensity.

There are a bunch of these characters in fiction, people who feel too much, who are constantly restless or reckless, perfectionists, who have trouble setting boundaries or dangerously self-sacrificing. They are the extreme opposite of yesterday’s “composure.” We tend to see a lot of the adrenaline junkies in the movies and a bunch of them are played by Tom Cruise. Be it CPT Pete “Maverick” Mitchel, who pushes himself and his aircraft to the edge; or Ethan Hunt, who’s idea of relaxation is free climbing mesas in Arizona and can’t move from place to place except at a full-out sprint — these are characters that typify on-screen intensity. There’s Pitch Black’s Riddick, where Vin Diesel managed to combine intensity and composure (intensely), at the time. Kinda like Batman — a barrage of violence wrapped in quiet, growly menace.

There’s the ones looking for the “big life” — Jay Gatsby looking to live life to the fullest, no matter the cost; James Bond’s caviar and fine wines, martinis and beautiful women for dinner and death for breakfast.

There’s the intense empaths — the people who can’t help but empathize with even the worst life has to offer, in the case of Will Graham — the FBI profiler from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. The same book that gave us another extreme personality, Hannibal Lektor, the cannibal psychologist and killer who preyed on victims that offended his highly honed sense of aesthetics. He is the antithesis to Graham — intellectual but unempathetic. Like the android David in Prometheus, he understands human emotions, although he does not feel them himself. (Lektor becomes much more nuanced over the course of Harris’ works and the movies based on him.)

The actress Gene Tierney once quipped, “I approached everything, my job, my family, my romances, with intensity.” A good example of what this looks like is a character from our Star Trek Adventures game: LT Stephen Archer is a descendent of the famed Starfleet captain and former Federation president. (We posited he married late.) His uncles, father, grandfather, aunt, brother — all of them were Starfleet, and Archer feels a real weight of this legacy. He was also brought up by his mother who indulged him in a lot. As a result, he is a big personality in almost every way. He takes to people quickly, wins them over with his enthusiasm, and takes ridiculous chance not just to prove he’s the best at whatever — but for the sheer thrill of living. He’s got the Han Solo/Maverick reckless pilot thing down pat. He volunteers for missions that he’s not really suited to. He has intense romances with women, but when they’re over — they’re done. Everything on the boy is turned up to 110%.