At the moment, I am thinking about procrastination, mainly because I am doing an awful lot of it. I have an essay due tomorrow, 1500 words on Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself', and I haven't started it. I printed out a few articles and I've read about half of one, but that is as much progress as I've made. Slept in till 3pm, I think because my body was unconsciously helping me procrastinate, and knew I would do nothing more productive with my day than watch bad tv and eat chocolate cake.
I have a quote pinned to the corkboard in my room that says "Procrastination is just fear of self". I can't remember where I got it from, but it was really to encourage myself to write more creatively, and more often. (It's underneath a Jane Smiley quote that says "Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist".) When I wrote it down and pinned it up, I didn't really consider it in relation to my academic stuff, but it applies, just as much as it does to the creative stuff. I am afraid of failing, afraid that what I will write will be garbage and that my lecturer will pass it around the staff room while all of my lecturers and tutors and everyone I've ever had contact with in the department laughs their arse off. Well, ok, I'm not afraid of that quite so literally, because I know everyone at my uni is a professional, but still, I'm not good with criticism. I'm not good with trying unless I know I'm going to succeed. Which really defeats the point of trying, because if you know it's going to work out, then trying is really just a pointless exercise, isn't it? You have to try in the face of adversity. Or so I would say if I was a motivational calender.
I sometimes wonder why I procrastinate so much. I feel so much more on top of things if I actually do them in advance, the crippling fear is not there, I actually feel intelligent and capable when I budget my time properly. Why do it to myself this way - where I have 24 hours in which to research and write a brilliant essay, and in between that I have to go to work for 8 hours. Procrastination is the most illogical beast.
Anyway, at this point I'm procrastinating finding a point to this blog, so I'm going to go and read some pompous articles on Walt Whitman and at least feel like I'm getting somewhere.
