Today’s theme from Ira Glass, on the subject of work:
“There are people who are fundamentally lazy, who only get anything done because they put themselves under dreadful deadline pressure. Those people are all my brothers.”
— (Spotted at thought peach)
I’ll leave it to those who know me best to decide whether I am kin to the Brotherhood. But there’s no question that dreadful deadline pressures have sunk their claws into me like a rabid wolverine. On the bus ride home yesterday I sketched out what I am committed to doing over the next couple days, weeks, months, and nearly passed out from the resulting anxiety fever — my impending doom took unmistakeable shape on the notebook in front of me.
The frightening part is that most of the obligations in question are positive things. There are developments on the horizon that I’ve wanted to see happen for many months, and I’ve been handed a few very appealing opportunities (I’ll hold off talking about them in this space until they take more tangible form). The walls are closing in, but the artwork hanging from them is exquisite.
All this hopefully serves as a rambling apology for my meagre output in this space of late. When pressure looms my instinct is to hunker down and try to focus… but the result too often is that I’m not walking the talk when it comes to reaping the wondrous benefits of personal publishing. Weblogging isn’t just a series of tasks, it’s also a useful means of processing information and blowing out the rust. I need to remind myself of that periodically.
Buy the ticket, take the ride. Let the good times roll. Fear is a man’s best friend. Gonna blog that grey right out of my hair: lather, rinse, repeat…
