RECYCLED THOUGHTS: 27FEB06 (or, "what i do when i should be sleeping")
so, if i feel like i got so much done today, why do i also feel as if i left so much undone? it's always like this ; it must be something @ my state of mind.
on the rare occasions when i have energy, & the even rarer days when i also feel motivated, i'm like a whole different person. i fell asleep in the chair for @ an hour today,& got mad @ it when i woke up. i'm usually mad @ having woken up.
but it's like that seldom-used, get-things-done part of my brain awakens once a month &, no matter how much i do, keeps coming up w/ 2 additional tasks for every 1 completed. it sets one to wondering whether the constant state of emergency caused by compulsive procrastination isn't less stressful than falling farther & farther from the ultimate goal of having everything done.
perhaps if the goal was revised. if one were to set out each day to "get things done," rather than to "get everything done," that frustration which accompanies the setting of the sun may be somewhat diminished.maybe even replaced by a sense of accomplishment.
on the other hand, of what use is accomplishment, if it leads not to eventual rest? perhaps a restful spirit is better than a rested body & mind? i fear i may never experience either, & so be incapable of an authoritative answer to my own query.
and now, how conceited i must be! to ask a question of myself, fully expecting an eventual --if not immediate-- answer, betrays an undue faith in my own intellect. if acknowledgement of ignorance is truly the beginning of wisdom, (& i believe it is so,) then how far i have yet to go! though i know, w/ my intellect, that i know little, that same intellect contradicts its own wisdom w/ its assumption of an ability to decipher any mystery encountered.
however many times i try to put myself in my proper place, i am ever confounded by that other part of myself, which finds it ultimately appropriate that i, in my wisdom, should be the one to do so. in acknowledging my ignorance, (which i do honestly,) i feed my own ego, by demonstrating to myself how wise i must be, to know that i am so ignorant.
oh, the profundity of my dissertations! it is matched only by the futility. and with that thought, i surrender yet another day, & slink dizzily off to bed, hopeful of a fresh start in the mourning, in a bright world, where everything is exactly as it ought to be, & i, like paul simon, may converse contentedly w/ any lampost that wanders my way, confident in the fact that i've nothing to get done.
on the rare occasions when i have energy, & the even rarer days when i also feel motivated, i'm like a whole different person. i fell asleep in the chair for @ an hour today,& got mad @ it when i woke up. i'm usually mad @ having woken up.
but it's like that seldom-used, get-things-done part of my brain awakens once a month &, no matter how much i do, keeps coming up w/ 2 additional tasks for every 1 completed. it sets one to wondering whether the constant state of emergency caused by compulsive procrastination isn't less stressful than falling farther & farther from the ultimate goal of having everything done.
perhaps if the goal was revised. if one were to set out each day to "get things done," rather than to "get everything done," that frustration which accompanies the setting of the sun may be somewhat diminished.maybe even replaced by a sense of accomplishment.
on the other hand, of what use is accomplishment, if it leads not to eventual rest? perhaps a restful spirit is better than a rested body & mind? i fear i may never experience either, & so be incapable of an authoritative answer to my own query.
and now, how conceited i must be! to ask a question of myself, fully expecting an eventual --if not immediate-- answer, betrays an undue faith in my own intellect. if acknowledgement of ignorance is truly the beginning of wisdom, (& i believe it is so,) then how far i have yet to go! though i know, w/ my intellect, that i know little, that same intellect contradicts its own wisdom w/ its assumption of an ability to decipher any mystery encountered.
however many times i try to put myself in my proper place, i am ever confounded by that other part of myself, which finds it ultimately appropriate that i, in my wisdom, should be the one to do so. in acknowledging my ignorance, (which i do honestly,) i feed my own ego, by demonstrating to myself how wise i must be, to know that i am so ignorant.
oh, the profundity of my dissertations! it is matched only by the futility. and with that thought, i surrender yet another day, & slink dizzily off to bed, hopeful of a fresh start in the mourning, in a bright world, where everything is exactly as it ought to be, & i, like paul simon, may converse contentedly w/ any lampost that wanders my way, confident in the fact that i've nothing to get done.
posted by starbuck at 20:51
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