 For Authors: June 24, 2020 Issue [#10241] |
This week: Crastination Edited by: Fyn-elf  
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Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. ~~Don Marquis
Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps. ~~Adam Grant
--Absolutely!
I think the worst and most insidious procrastination for me is research. I will be looking for some bit of fact or figure to include in the novel, and before I know, I've wasted an entire morning delving into that subject matter without a word written. ~~James Rollins
For me, most of the anxiety and difficulty of writing takes place in the act of not writing. It's the procrastination, the thinking about writing that's difficult. ~~Adam Mansbach hmmm - I know folks like this!
My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season. ~~Mary Todd Lincoln
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Thirteen months ago on Wednesday, what was once situation normal for my husband and I changed forever. One heals, one adapts. We learn to deal with a 'new normal.' Guess we had a bit of pretraining for the current changes in all our lives. Still, the anniversary of his stroke gave us cause to look back. What we saw as strengths surprised us in a way because one was not what one would usually call a strength. But then it is really a matter of perspective and how one's view can change every bit as much as how his footprints have.
Someone has said that as 'crastination' is defined 'delaying or putting off until tomorrow'; and apparently we have all become so good at it that we are now pros at it and hence procrastination has evolved to become the accepted word.
Personally, I 'pro'-crastinate for several reasons. One is that a long time ago, I realized that I write better under pressure; the closer to a deadline the better. Too much, too far in advance of due time and I simply don't have the energy. I need the sense of imperative (or maybe encroaching doom) to 'get it done or else.' The second is that I just don't want to do or deal with whatever it is 'right now.' Later. Whenever; just not now! This usually happens when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Not as in deadlines, just too much disparate 'stuff' going on that edges in. Times like those I am easily sidetracked by little things bugging me, comments/responses I 'should' have made (that I don't think of until it is waaaay after the fact) or poems that pick right then to spin their way out of the ether. Occasionally, Hubby and I will agree to intentionally (which is why we are pros at it) crastinate.
The bathroom got painted because we decided to paint rather than something or other else that needed doing. (I have no idea now what it was or if that thing ever got done.) I once drove to Pike's Peak because I didn't feel like driving through Denver. I ended up in Michigan because it was closer than Arizona and I was tired. (Now I live here!)
Another reason is that I am mulling over something and doing other things sidetrack me even though my subconscious keeps plugging away at it and then suddenly (because I am NOT thinking about it) the answer presents itself just in time to derail whatever the other thing is which then, usually, never gets finished at all. Amazingly, things get done, work is attended to and we get tons accomplished. Of course, some happen at the eleventh hour.
The problem with perfecting this (we'll call it an) art, is that life tends to throw obstacles of its own. Unavoidable things that there are no getting away from. Little things like, um, strokes or viruses or deaths or lockdowns. Then there no avoidance, no putting off, no circuitous pathways. One just needs to shuffle the other stuff in with the necessary steps and then worry about the spazzing later. Or as we say, 'muddle' through.
The past year has been one of two highs and numerous lows. It has truly been the hardest year of my life. My husband and I have made it through irrevocable changes, life-altering moments, fear, hopelessness, depressions, recoveries, the surmounting of problems/issues, and the realizations that we are neither immortal nor impervious. What was instrumental in our coming out the far side of a very black and nasty cloud was the ability to allow ourselves to procrastinate some things in order to deal with others. Some times, the choices weren't pretty. Or easy. Or fun. But they were necessary. Procrastination as a survival tool, how about that!
And yes, I can hear my grandmother off in the distance, muttering about 'putting off until tomorrow what can be done today.' We do for each other, always, ALWAYS say we love one another and never put off the hugs! Hubby (reading over my shoulder) just said, "That's the truly important stuff; the super glue and duct tape. Everything else is just the bits and pieces.
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CaptainMidnightSingforPhoebe  writes: I read the letter from the Editor with relish. (I eschewed the mustard) and positively bristled at the idea of mighty libraries reduced to e-anything. I work in a library. My home looks more like a library than any known example of a contemporary 21st century domicile. There is something gripping about the mere suggestibility of fear of a book. Not what's between the covers, but literally (or mortally) what forms of bacterium or viral residue may inhabit its cover.
Methinks that perhaps the populace doth protest too little - but fear is a powerful force, of course. A very strange fortnight, the first one furloughed home from work, rising each morning with first conscious thoughts that felt like waiting for a symptom. It does take awhile to get over a thing like that. So now we're beginning to ask ourselves, what sort of relationship will we have with our physical world? Our familiar community surroundings? A lot of fascinating questions and answers in our future.
hbk16 says: The covid19 pandemic has changed our living as communities. Many changes are happening in a radical way indeed. We find ourselves as people obliged to adopt these fast changes. The more the pandemic lasts the more the world will be submitted to a dramatic economic and person loss' consequences. I hope that these changes will succeed to prevent this loss(material and human). I hope that the pandemic ends quickly. Great share!
Elisa: Snowman Stik  comments: "Book stores may vanish as the point of a book is to pick it up, hold it, read the back cover or inside the flap of a dustjacket."
I was recently at a small bookstore. The directions there stated if you do pick up a book to return it to a separate testing shelf. The book essentially goes into quarantine for two days before the staff further disinfects it/returns it to its original shelf. (Admittedly, I ended up buying socks at the store, but that's mostly because I didn't see the book I actually did want.)
QueenNormaJean snow?forgetit..  adds: I heard once that our ability to adapt to change is a sign of our mental health. So as we all tread lightly down this new path, I think some will wander off into madness, while others will forge ahead unafraid. I prefer to think of myself as one unafraid.
Here in Montana we are lucky. Relatively few people are sick, and in my county, only one person fell ill with the Corona virus. So we continue our lives, cautious but not foolish. I don't like this new normal, but I'm unable to change it so I guess I'll adapt eventually.
We are surely living in a curious time
Quick-Quill  sighs: I understand this. Selling is hard. My husband has built 3 wooden wheelbarrows. It’s a spare time activity. Every few hours he asks if anyone has responded to buy another one (we sold one). Selling on the internet is hard to do
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