Tag: Procrastinating

Procrastinating, Corruption, Meritocracy and Showering In The Rain

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Yesterday I had a little ramble about nothing at all and tonight may just evolve into similar. There are times when I can’t think of anything and they turn into some of my favourite pieces and other times when well, they don’t. I contemplated procrastinating a little more but it’s already after nine o’clock at night and this thing can’t be allowed to drag itself out too late. That and I had a quick moment of trying to be present and realising life is about one task at a time. I think I had been watching something random or a few random things which involved beautiful people or successful people and realised they probably don’t procrastinate. Or maybe they do they’re just really good at what they do in between. One day at a time though and one step at a time. We won’t achieve these anxiety inducing dreams any other way.

Politics is always an easy one to bring up, which I’ve said already I imagine. It appears a few MPs and The Good Law Project have decided to take legal action on the Government over their awarding of contracts during the Covid-19 crisis. Anyone who simply watches the mainstream media news cycle will be completely unaware of this but it turns out they’ve been spaffing a lot of tax payers money up against the wall awarding contracts to their mates, or companies with links to their mates. Quite often these companies have little expertise in the area they get the contract and in most cases they’ve completely messed up whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. For an obvious example think of the test and trace app which in itself would result in people going to jail if we didn’t live in such a corrupt society.

Talking of meritocracy I was listen to a podcast tonight called The Partially Examined Life which I’ve only recently discovered and haven’t listened to enough to give too much of an opinion. It was their discussion on The Graduate which led me to watch it the other day. I never got through the whole podcast tonight as I finished cooking my dinner and preferred to watch an episode of something crap instead but they were discussing and interviewing the author of On The Tyranny Of Merit: What’s Become Of The Common Good – Micheal Sandel. It was reasonably interesting but I had heard some of the ideas before; namely that it can result in those at the top lacking empathy as they believe they have achieved what they achieve purely through their own ability which is rarely ever the case and that it can lead to a disconnection between them and those deemed unsuccessful. It is idealistic in that it is not cohesive with modern society. He discussed about in relation to our polarised politics, or more precisely America’s but it relates to the Brits too. Basically as the title suggests he’s totally against it. I missed bits as I was distracted by cooking and also didn’t listen to it all but as I said it’s not the first time I’ve heard this and it’s an idea I have sympathy for.

Where I am in Greece is currently enduring what is apparently day one of five days worth of storms. I just had a rain shower which is always a pleasure and not one I get to experience enough. I remember dancing around in monsoon rains in India, the locals thought I was completely mad. I’m right in front of the yard security cameras with the boat so decided against taking my undies off although I doubt anyone would ever be watching. I was a little concerned about the lightning tonight as it only seems to be a couple of miles away but I’m banking on all the boat masts getting it before me. Just in case I’m unlucky though it’s also a good reason to keep the undies on, it seems to be a slightly more dignified way to go out for some reason. Isn’t human conditioning an interesting barrels of intricacies.

Elizabeth, Victor & Some Contradictions

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

As I stare blankly at the screen I realise I have nothing to say. So why say anything at all. I have to don’t you know. I have to because I decided I have to. The plan had been to write this before I went and made pizzas but I have been having too much of a nice time sitting around in my reading corner I lost track of time. It turns out too that I do actually have enough books for a suitable stack, one which now doubles as my coffee cup stand for extra pleasure. I also bought two plants yesterday and have promptly named them today. They go by Elizabeth and Victor. I’ll leave you work out which book I have been enjoying in my new armchair reading corner. It’s really nice having plants, how I waited this long is beyond me. They add an extra layer of life to a house even if they are from Lidl. I see them as rescue plants. They’re going to recover and grow into something beautiful, in their own right that is, however they see fit to evolve.

The idea then had been to just quickly introduce todays piece which was going to be on one quick idea I had while making pizzas but I seem to have gotten a little carried away and written half of today’s piece. It can be like this with anything though; we use so much energy avoiding starting something because we imagine it’s going to be exhausting or beyond us but the only exhausting bit is the avoidance and it’s only beyond us because we avoid doing it. There was a period in which I decided an approach to completing both tasks and pleasures which involved effort was to do them the moment they entered my mind. I believed that they entered my mind because it was now I had to do them and not wait until later once I had finished procrastinating. I still kind of believe it but only kind of because my attempt only lasted about half an hour on the two separate occasions I tried. Our abilities to put so much effort into avoiding effort is quite remarkable. There really are so many levels to human fallibility, we’re such complex creatures that these simplistic boxes we all stuff ourselves and others into do everybody such a disservice.

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Well I didn’t leave much room for my moment of wisdom and understanding I had while making pizzas. It does mean though I don’t have to write much now I’m back in and it’s late so maybe I’ll have my first early night in a while. Drum roll please….in light of these VE celebrations going on today, why is it people who seem most intent and proud of celebrating the victory of freedom over tyranny as it is described, are also the ones happiest to support people and laws which aim to take away our liberties and take us further down the path towards possible tyranny. It is a generalisation and a stereotype, but it is also an accurate representation of many people. There just seems to be something odd and contradictory about it. That was my thought.

The Art Of Procrastinating

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Procrastinating really is an art form when done at it’s finest. I sat down an hour ago at my computer to do some work on something and knowing I had a little more time than usual decided to just have a little browse of the easy thoughtless websites I usually like kill time with. My version of those are football related and I can easily spend an hour reading the latest news, transfer gossip, he said / she said stories that don’t require much thought. Perhaps that is why they do so well; they grab you with click-bait style headlines and then are usually written so simply the mind needs to put in only the minimum effort to read them. They are also addictive. Facebook is the other procrastinator but while football is seemingly still there, I have managed to give up bothering with it much beyond emails to other people and obviously posting these blog pieces. Twitter and Instagram? Don’t be silly.

Why do we procrastinate then? Is this another example of a lack of discipline? Procrastinating is about doing something else, usually thoughtless and a waste of time, to avoid doing something more important and likely more challenging. Even this piece today is in itself procrastinating; just as I finally closed the football related windows I realised how much I had just been wasting time for the last hour and how I was still stuck in the old habits of the past. Why not write about it then and while I need to write something today, there is probably a slight avoidance in this action by doing it at this moment.

We all procrastinate though and modern society is just full of opportunities. If it’s not football news it’s Facebook. If not that it’s some stupid click-bait site giving you thirty moments someone you don’t actually care about either embarrassed themselves or didn’t wear make-up. Struggling with not enough click-bait then why not play some kind of addictive game on your phone or become a zombie to short YouTube videos. These are all technological methods but what did people do before Nokia kicked it all off with it’s highly memorable Snake game? People must have still procrastinated but I was about sixteen then so it’s hard to say. Maybe doodling was more common, people certainly read newspapers more but that’s not solely a procrastinating thing. Genuinely I don’t know. Perhaps I can find out online, that should kill some more time.