Posted by brian on May 30, 2000, at 12:24:17
In reply to Re: Procrastination as Disease, posted by Noa on May 30, 2000, at 12:06:29
> Another aspect of procrastination for me these days is the sense of futility I feel. Normally, I would feel good about getting a job done, such as cleaning the apartment. It would feel like an accomplishment and I would feel good about acheiving it. Over time, as I became more chronically depressed and immobilized, the mess accumulated more and more. I would go a long time before cleaning it up, only to find that I let it get messy soon afterward. After a while, I started to feel, "why bother?" What is the point of putting out effort to correct it if I am just going to let it become a problem again soon. It is a feeling of hopelessness about being mired in a cycle. Of not feeling the effort is worthwhile, of not feeling any sense of power to achieve real change.
I get that, Noa. In college I once constructed a long, lazy pseudo-philisophical argument against the "obsession to organize." I said that, us messy people are more in touch with reality, because eventually everything falls apart. Therefore, effort ultimately leads nowhere.
Ah, college! Those we're the days of King Subjectivity, when life's consequences we're measured in letters. Unfortunately, we "creative types" live in a world better suited to Felix Ungers.
I get in cycles where I just let things go. It's as though I temporarily lose the thread and just let life happen, like a neurotic buddha. Then I get back on my game and solemnly swear never to let the moss collect again. Until it collects, and life becomes again a passive verb.
What to do about these ebbs and flows. I haven't found an answer. Perhaps I'll go back to my "I'm right, society is wrong" way of thinking. The money sucks, but I sure did feel a lot better about myself.
poster:brian
thread:34476
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000526/msgs/35227.html