The Dangers of Procrastination!

Procrastination is the mother of pain, of stress, and of frustration. It is a strange thing, you know that the work has to be done, there is nothing that is going to change that, and yet still you would rather check Face Book, go for a walk, or clip your toenails. Even as I write this, I am procrastinating. I should be writing a presentation about Crime and Punishment in Medieval England, but I am writing this instead.

 

            But then, I feel that I can justify this. I need to warm my fingers up, otherwise I could pull a muscle, do some real damage. And at least I am working, even if I am not working on what I should be. And it’s only just gone midnight, the night is still young!

 

            But this is not the first time that I have let things get on top of me, and I know for a fact that there are others in the same situation as me even as I type. Procrastination is a plague that ruins our lives, it is the blight of students, it is an epidemic! Why the government has not ploughed millions into finding a cure is anyone’s guess. Do we really need a cure for the common cold? Is not the health and wellbeing of millions of students worldwide far more important?

 

            And it is not just students that are affected! Anyone who needs  to work but cannot is a victim. What people do not understand is that it is not just shear lazyness, there is more to it than that! At the moment, there is nothing that I want more than to get this work done, but I just cannot do it! It is like bungee jumping; you may not want to do it, but afterwards, you can see that it was well worth it. In fewer than five minutes I have written more words for this than I have in the last five hours for the presentation. Why do these things have to be so hard?

 

            So yes, it is more than a case of being lazy, it is a case of physically not being able to work. In the same way that I cannot float above my desk, I cannot do this work! Perhaps if I could get a job writing down my random thoughts (those of you who have read Athel’s Fish will know of what I speak) then I would be sorted. Well, that is the dream anyway (Please pay me to write this stuff! Just let me have one tiny column! I’m a good writer, I promise!).

 

            But then I suppose that if this writing was my job, I would be writing for work, not pleasure, and I would most likely procrastinate about that as well.

 

            Good god, this has got bad! It has got the point where I would rather write this shit than get on with the bloody project! I’ve tried everything! I’ve been for a walk, I’ve had a shower, I’ve tried doing it a different way, but nothing works!

 

I’m going to stop now, and I promise you that by midnight, I will have another 100 words done, or I shall jump out of my window, making these my last words to the world...

Athel's Fish

What is the point of fish?

Do they know what it is like to be wet?

They have no conception of aeration!

 

Fish fingers?

Fingers!

Of fish!

 

Oh fish,

What, tell me what do you see?

How is the water? May I join you?

 

For a swim?

A dip?

 

I wonder about...

I wonder about a fishes life.

A life without wind

A life without rain

Tell me fish, how can you contemplate rain,

When all about you is water?

Water always?

 

Tell me fish, are you jealous of the birds?

You can fly through the water

As they swim through the sky

 

But...

 

They can stop, and stand, and look

All around them is air

You can never stop,

Take stock

And wait,

Only to launch

Out

Into space

Into air

To glide

To slide

With the wind below you wings

Or your fins?

 

Perhaps...

 

But then,

You are a fish.

You should be happy with your lot

You have no need

To support

That body weight of yours!

 

You may be unable to learn from the mistakes of the past

But you are unencumbered

By past pains.

 

Do you know that you are fish?

Do you know that you swim?

Do you know that we eat your fingers?

Do you know

What it is like

To be

Wet?

 

Do you know what your point is?

 

Do fish ask

What,

Is the point

Of people?

Tools of the Trade

A few weeks ago whilst I was running a meeting of Yatta magazine, someone came up with the idea of publishing a photograph of the editors desk (aka, mine). This seemed like a good idea, so as soon as I got home that night I spent some time taking some photos of my desk with my phone. The plan was to copy them to my laptop, merge them all together, and then write some notes about the more interesting features, like the stack of old records behind the book stand.

 

This I could not do, as I found that I had lost the data connection cable for my phone, and I still have not been able to turn the Bluetooth on my laptop on. So I have decided to try a different approach, one which I hope will kill two birds with one stone, as it were.

 

I know that one of my major flaws when it comes to writing is not being able to write in a clear descriptive manner. So I hope that by taking  some time out to describe my surroundings, I will get better at this, and you will get some idea of what my environment is like (I am a firm believer in nurture over nature).

 

I shall start with what is directly in front of me; my laptop. It is not a bad thing, I have not had it long, and I love it, mainly because I paid  nothing for it (thank you UK taxpayers!). it sits upon a stand, so that the screen is nice and high as with a desktop, but the keyboard is at too steep an angle to allow typing. For this reason I have a rather snazzy wireless keyboard, and a good mouse to go with it. For many years I was against the idea of a wireless mouse, I always thought that I would lose it; but it is great! I can sit in bed and control the computer from afar!

 

Okay, I realise that this is getting a bit dull, so I shall try and spice it up a bit by telling you that I have three lamps. At the top-left corner of the desk, in the opposite corner to the laptop, is my lava lamp. Many is the time when writers block has been blown away by a few minutes contemplation of its green globulations. Next to it, sitting upon an (unopened) stack of blank CDs, is a small desk lamp that I suppose I stole from my old house. It’s okay though, the house is no longer there, only a massive hole in the ground remains.

 

In the bottom right corner sits my anglepoize lamp, one of the most useful things on the desk. Its head sits just above the keyboard, and I can see over the top of the arm to the screen beyond. It also makes a very good place to mount my microphone, for when I am chatting online and such.

 

Above the lamp (well, I say above, but I mean that it is further towards the back of the desk) is a book stand. Although it could be used for any type of book; I mostly use it for books about archaeology; I will always think of it as a stand for cookery books, as it came from my parent’s kitchen. Beyond the book stand is my entire record collection, numbering some four titles. I am sorry to say that unlike my main music collection, my collection of vinyl is not very eclectic; they are all by Pink Floyd. To the left of these is my laptop (see above).

 

On the left hand side of the desk, as well as the lava lamp, can be found my USB hub. This is a great thing, I have so much to plug into my laptop that being able to plug just one thing in is a really great thing, it must save me a good few seconds each time I replace my laptop upon its stand.

 

To the left of the desk is a small chest of draws where I keep a load of random shit, such as old cables, broken headphones, and a few copies of Private Eye. On to p of this sits my printer, now sadly defunct as I am out of black ink. There is also a large bottle of water, and a small glass. The bottle; unlike most of what I have said; has a slightly interesting story behind it...

 

Many months ago, I was required for reasons that matter not to you to collect all the pee for a period of twenty-four hours. To help me with this task I was given a large bottle. I was also given a second bottle just in case. In case of what I never quite found out, although I suspect that it was in case the first bottle became full. This was not likely to happen, as both the bottles where quite large, but none the less, the spare bottle has come in useful at last.

 

Well, I hope that I have managed to captivate your interest, mind you, if you are reading this (and I know for a fact that you are; those who do not will never know that I am wrong, so it is a moot point in any case) then you must have found all of the above at least slightly interesting, unless you were just reading it in the hope that it might get good, or because you could not believe that anyone could write so badly.

 

Please feel free to leave comments telling me that I am not a bad writer at all, as I need all the help that I can get convincing myself that this is the case. 

Or you could read more at my site, the choice is yours...

Why you should never read a book again

If you truly love to read, then you should never read again
.
I am unable to recall the first book that I ever fell in love with, there have been so many over the years Although I do not remember it at the time, I do remember my mother later telling me that I was always asking her to read the study book of time and clocks to me. Why this book, I do not know. I can picture it now, a thin, square hardback book, no more that thirty pages at the most. It was (is in fact, as it still has a place on my bookcase, and ever will) the vilest of brown colours, and must have been fifty years old, even then.
.
It did have the most wonderful smell, the smell that only old books can have, the smell of knowledge, of discovery. Why liked it, I have never known, but I did, and it is still, even after all these years, a very important book to me.
.
Later on, when I must have been about eight or nine, I fell in love with the works of Margaret Mayhey. To be fair, that might not have been her name, but it was something like that, and it was a long time ago. I do know why, but I always had the idea that she was from New Zeeland, and anyone who knows me well enough to know will know that New Zeeland has always had a certain appeal to me. Perhaps it is the mountains, or the fjords, or the zorbing.
.
I also remember the day that I was introduced, by my uncle, to three other books, books that have gone on to, if not actually change my life, than at least change the way that I think about it. Although it only happened three times, I have always associated my uncle with good books, and always been slightly disappointed if I ever had a gift from him that was not a book. He did once give me a rather cool lava lamp, but the bulb blew out after a year or so, and, what with one thing and another, I have not yet got around to getting another one.
.
I am not sure what came first, but I do know that my uncle, at Christmas, I assume, as he has never been very good at remembering birthdays less that two-thousand years old, gave me a two books. Not at the same time, and, as I said, I do not know which came first, but the result was the same, so it does not really matter. One of the books was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the other was The Subtle Knife, by J.K.Rowling and Phillip Paulman respectively.
.
I also remember, one birthday, I must have been a bit older by this time, that he gave me The Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. Now, some of you may have noticed something that all of theses books have in common. If you can not see the connection, then I am afraid that you are out of time, it really should not take that long to spot. All of these three books are part of a series (or something similar); Harry Potter, His Dark Materials; and Discworld respectively. Further more, they are none of them the first book in their respective series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Subtle Knife are both second books, and The Thief of Time is something like the twenty sixth discworld book.
.
There are a few reasons for this. The first is that my uncle had assumed that I had already read the other books, and would welcome a continuation. The second, and, unfortunately, most likely reason, is that he did not realise that they where all part of a series. But the reason that I like to believe, despite the fact that I know for a fact that it is not the right one, is that, by buying me the second book, my uncle was encouraging me to read the first, just so that the second would make sense, or something like that, anyway.
.
I fell in love with all three books, and the rest of their series. It is discworld, I think, that will stay with me for the longest, I will read them as long as Pratchett is alive to write them. But it is His Dark Materials that meant, and still means, the most to me. To make this easier for me to write, I will assume that you have read them (if not, why not? You really need to read them ASAFP (if you do not know what the F stands for, then you are to young or naive to be told)).
.
If you have read them, then you will know just how powerful they are. They are books that I could read forever, except for the small problem of them coming to an end. To be honest, I did nod read them as such, rather, I listened to the audio books. These, in my mind, where far better, and the use of a full cast, as if they where plays, not books, made them something spectacular. If only more audio books made use of full casts, then life would be that much better.
.
But my point is this. Although I have read the books many times, they have never been as good, and never will be as good, as they where the first time. Over the years, I have come to realise that the sense of disappointment that I feel at the end of any good book is not a result of the book being over, it is something more than that. It is caused by the realisation that I will never be able to read the book again for the first time. Never again will I be able to, in the words of the Floyd, “Feel the warm thrill of confusion”, because I will always know what is going to happen next.
.
A very good example of this can be seen in The Chrysalids, by the late great John Wyndham. Those of you that know me well enough to know (or, as Robert Rankin likes to put it in his absurdly brilliant books “it is a fact well known to those who know it well…”) that for many a year I claimed that The Day of the Triffids was my favourite book. Those of you at the meeting where we discussed the book will, I hope, remember my undying enthusiasm for it. I believe that it has one of the biggest pages on the wiki devoted to it, mainly as a result of me pasting in the entire Wikipeadia entry into it, along with about three different book covers.
.
I loved that book. The fist time I read it, I listened to the audio book, whilst going out for long walks in the rain. I loved nothing more than to plod the streets, in the rain, and in the dark, with the orange glow of the streetlights making everything seem so much more interesting. But then, at the meeting, my world changed. Harry lent me a copy of The Chrysalids.
.
I knew, as soon as I read the blurb, that I would love this book, as I loved all of Wyndham’s work. But I did not know at that time just how much I would love this book. A few days later, I assisted at a scout camp for a few days. The scouts all went home on the Sunday, but a few of us stayed over until the Monday. On Sunday night, I sat by the campfire, and began to read. I do not know how long it took me o read, not long, I would think, The Chrysalids is only about two-hundred pages long, but I do know that I read it all the way through, sitting by that fire, and then, when it got really cold, lying in my tent.
.
““This time, darling, we’ll forgive you,” Rosalind told her. “It is.””.

And as I read that last line, I felt a great sadness. Not with the story, it was a happy ending, although, like all Wyndham, and all good books, it left me wanting more (if you get to the end of a book, and do not want to know what happens next, then the book was not worth reading).
No, I felt sad because I knew that, as long as I lived, I would never again be able to read this wonderful, uplifting book again. Oh, I could re-read it, but what would be the point in that? After all, I would know what was going to happen.
.
The only way that I can think of stopping this gut wrenching feeling is to never read another book again. And that is why I say this: if you truly love reading, if your life is empty unless you can “Feel the warm thrill of confusion”, if you need to read to live, then there is only one thing to do
You must never read again.
.
But that is no good, because then, what would be the point? And so, if everything must come at a cost, then the cost of reading is the pain of never being able to read a book again.