You know what's weird? I write my longest pieces when under severe deadline pressure. I do this, in part, because I am the living embodiment of Robert Benchley's maxim: "Any man can do any amount of work, provided that it is not what he is supposed to be doing at the time."
But the primary reason I blog has to do with the fact that sitting in front of a computer screen for eight, nine, ten hours -- doing, you know, the stuff I'm supposed to be doing -- can be downright excruciating. That's when I yearn to research outre subjects like Stanley Ann Dunham's possible relationship to the CIA. That's also when I feel a need to write that long-simmering screenplay about the Franco-Prussian war, or to seek out every scrap of information I can find concerning the obscure Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg, who deserves to be much better known. Hell, when the workload becomes particularly severe, you can find me volunteering to do the dishes and run the vaccuum -- for the people next door.
Now that project is over. No deadline looms. No nagging inner voice is telling me that I'm an irresponsible bastard and should get back to the grindstone. I have plenty of free time.
And I have nothing to say.
Fortunately, a new project to shirk starts tomorrow.
3 comments:
Nothing to say, Joe?
How 'bout a glowing testimonial about the latest appointment by His Lordship:
Bernanke Named to Second Term at Fed After Keeping U.S. Out of Depression.
So THAT explains the continued delay in posting your twice (or thrice?)-promised report on AIG! Its on your supposed-to-do list!
Hah!
I know exactly what you mean. I've got four fundraising proposals for my program in front of me right now - all with a deadline of September 4th. I've been procrastinating on all of them, and had the first one all written out - except I didn't like it.
So today I started to write it out all over again, from a completely different angle, and much more convincing. It came from my heart, and I think it's really good.
It's the damn deadline that made me re-write stuff I wrote first just to please the grantees. But I knew it was really lacking.
Too bad I had to spend the time on writing the first one, wasting my time, but obligatory.
I too operate best when it comes down to do or die. I think our "survival" instinct that kicks in at the last moment, does us much more good than the "planning" instinct (if it even is an instinct).
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