Grumpy Bohemian
In the heat of preparing for an exhibition or delivering a project, I find it easy to put off petty administrative tasks. Yesterday I dealt with some I have procrastinated over for months. It may be convenient to be too busy for tedium, but behaviour of that kind can have catastrophic consequences.
Yesterday I spent the morning putting in an application for a public art project. Today is the deadline for applications, so the envelope needed to be sent by special delivery. In the afternoon I agreed to do a job, one I’d hoped to be saved from having to undertake, but financial salvation is taking its time. I phoned up, longing for it to have been offered to someone else, but it was still mine.
Why, at my advanced age, do I still have this problem, one that as a teenager perenially made me the last student to deliver my school homework? It must be possible to seek psychological help, but shouldn’t I simply use willpower to stop this childishness?
The answer is probably at my fingertips, but when I look at models of rectitude and good behaviour, I am defensive rather than insightful. Other people may be good at answering their e-mails, but do they spend as as much time as I do clearing up? It is great living in a carefree bohemian household, but you can feel grumpy when the bohemians are sleeping it off while you are washing the stairs, I think, defensively.
I spoke to my mother yesterday, who told me she had spent the weekend clearing up letters on my father’s desk dating from 2003. My behaviour could be worse, I suppose.
Being a good bohemian.
I love this Emma. Each person’s brain leans this way or that, and the un-leaned-toward-way points to a pile of tedium. Creative people are expected to handle the many uncreative details, but analytical people are so very rarely expected to be creative!
No comment
I don’t know Pam. Sometimes the things I am putting off involve writing, and I enjoy that! I don’t think it’s so much the task itself, as the enormous difficulty of changing direction and focus. Does that sound familiar at all?
Yes it sounds familiar. Anyone else have the experience of needing to pee for hours and just not being able to stop whatevering? Doesn’t have to be something special or fun or creative — it’s just being hooked in. Where IS that room, BTW. When are you going to get around to painting it?
I totally relate to not taking a break and having to pee for hours. I also can’t seem to stop nipping sometimes when stopping is essential for sanity and execution. I keep making the same mistake over and over when stepping back would be the answer.
Danette, I think dogged persistence is an essential element of creative practice. It’s hard to solve problems without it. What may seem a problem in one context can be a virtue in another!
And George, what mistakenly makes you think I have the time and money to spend painting rooms? Specially in my peasant hideaway!
Maybe it’s time to get a bohemian roomba?
I’m curious that you chose to use the word prevarication rather than procrastination…perhaps in the UK they mean the same thing? I love words as much as tesserae, that’s why I’m asking….
Thank you Ilona — they don’t at all! One of the disadvantages of writing a blog is that you don’t have an editor. My head is full of holes, and sometimes the internal wires get crossed. I have corrected it, and I’m grateful to you for pointing it out!