EXCUSES // EXCESS
Ironic that I am having a hard time sitting down to write today, when my intention all along has been to write a post about excuses...
Finally. Someone said it. This felt bang-on to me even before I read the entire article. Dr. Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology, concurs. "The thoughts we have about procrastination typically exacerbate our distress and stress, which contribute to further procrastination," she says. A dilemma I am well-acquainted with. If I am uncomfortable with the idea of failure or success with my creative project, for example, I'm much more likely to feel the need to do dishes, make another coffee, or answer a phone call during my self-appointed 'writing time'. If I'm not good at handling boredom (which happens often when I stare at the screen), I may be quick to jump up when the cat needs to go out, which leads to some outdoor chores, then a visit with the neighbour.
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| Well, at least that's one thing done. |
Sirois and Pychyl wrote in their 2013 study that procrastination can be understood as "the primacy of short-term mood repair...over the longer-term pursuit of intended action." In other words, finding ways to distract from or soothe discomfort (issues of anxiety, self-esteem, self-doubt, etc.) at the expense of the bigger picture or goal. You'd almost think we are addicted to feeling bad, and will do anything to avoid it, even if it is counterproductive to our intended or imagined future. Sound familiar? Read more here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html
9:30 am -- Sat down at the computer to write, but checked my email first, out of habit (this is also after I washed the keypad protector that was getting grungy - 10 minutes), and then because I had an email from my school administrator asking to check if I had a book form the library, I went to my bookshelf. Didn't find the book, but found my old poetry collection I'd been searching for, decided to quickly rearrange the books into proper subject sections, realized the whole bookshelf needed dusting, and pulled out a couple file folders to re-organize. Twenty minutes later, I got back to my desk, where I remembered to check online for how-to canoe repair videos, and also called the local canoe shop to get a quote. A $500 estimate sends me to the budget/drawing board to see if there's any way I can save that money in time for canoe season, which leads to depressing feelings of lack, which I decide to soothe by making myself a coffee (10 minutes). Except I am out of cream, so making a coffee the way I like it requires frothing the black coffee with coconut oil and butter to make it seem like there's cream, so that takes another 10 minutes. But hey, I'm saving time, because I didn't go downtown to get cream...right?!
That's the first hour of my two-hour writing block. Does reading for book club count as 'writing related' (because I'm learning about voice and storytelling, of course)? That's how I'd like to spend the next hour. Instead I am here, typing away self-indulgently, knowing that I am ignoring the creative writing project I've been chipping away at since January (and before that, for far longer than I care to mention). Emotional regulation much?!
Jump ahead a week and I'm back, having more diligently worked this morning on said creative writing project, and then taken a leisurely two-hour lunch break to walk and have tea with a friend. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon another article that captures what I am struggling with: Maria Popova from Brain Pickings, on concentration and commitment, with plenty of quotes from one of my favourite writers, Mary Oliver, to make the reading smooth and inspiring. This has me realizing that writing, and any creative task, is so much about process, and about somehow forgetting (if only for a little while) the end result. Accepting that imbalance, distraction and moodiness are a part of that process makes it all feel a bit better, with less pressure. And yet, the pressure is also there: look how many books this other author has written! And she has three kids! How. Do. They. Do. It.
Lots of great links here:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10/12/mary-oliver-upstream-creativity-power-time/
Pressure, overwhelm, and this one: excess. Last week, when I took the time to go down to my favourite spot by the lake, I thought about the time we spent on our trip, driving through the towns and cities of Washington, Oregon and California. Though Canada is similar in many places, what struck me so strongly about even the rural gas stations along our route, was the sense of excess. The number of options to choose from in every shop we entered, the amount of food and plastic, the sheer quantity of disposable items was astounding.
While I've certainly chosen to live in a tiny town where these kind of options are not available, it's not like I forgot that they exist. And yet, to be faced with so much, in so many of the places we visited, day after day -- it definitely brought my overwhelm to a new level, and made me wonder why and how we have reached a point in history where this is considered normal, even desirable. I could go on, recognizing that within my criticism and overwhelm there are elements of privilege and indulgence, and knowing that within me, there is an ability to 'block it all out,' which constitutes a coping mechanism for many people, just trying to go about their days and keep it all together. I choose not to block it out, and sometimes I feel I can't, and this causes me stress and takes up a surprising amount of my mental energy.
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| If I made this much coffee I wouldn't need to keep getting up to make coffee... |
To stop and consider why, and how we might do things differently, means an openness to the uncomfortable place of helplessness and doubt about my own choices. I think in part so many of the excuses I come up with in my own creative work are a result of this sense of excess; they distract me from the work of getting down to it, from facing the insecurities and overwhelm that come with diving into the unknown, into creativity and inspiration and hope and ambition. In a way, I am battling with myself, and it is this 'self-distraction' which "is the most hazardous kind of distraction," writes Popova.
Quoting Oliver from her book of essays, Upstream, she writes:
"The world sheds, in the energetic way of an open and communal place, its many greetings, as a world should. What quarrel can there be with that? But that the self can interrupt the self - and does - is a darker and more curious matter."
It is a dilemma that every creative person must wrestle with, and I am grateful to Mary Oliver, a much more experienced, eloquent and celebrated writer, for her thoughtful words on the subject.
In other reading this week, I stumbled upon a chapter called "Polarities", in the book The Dreamer and the Dream, by a Gestalt and Jungian therapist named Rainette Eden Fantz. It has me reflecting on one passage in particular about the nature, and necessity, of opposites.
"Jung believed that personality contains polar tendencies. He maintained that a psychological theory of personality must be founded on the principle of opposition or conflict because the tensions created by conflicting elements are the very essence of life. Without tension he felt there would be no energy and therefore no personality. Nor did he believe that the contest between rational and irrational forces of the psyche ever ceased.
It is important to remember that polar elements not only oppose one another, they also attract and seek one another, and that a balanced and integrated personality can only result through a synthesis of these polar traits" (Fantz 98).
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| Overwhelmed by good ideas and inspiration: that's also a thing. |
The tensions created by conflicting elements are the very essence of life. I like this a lot. It helps me to imagine the work of life - ordinary and creative, mundane and sublime - as a balancing act, between rational and irrational impulses, between the inadequacies and overwhelm of wants, sensations, and issues, personally and in the world. Writers like Mary Oliver remind me to take it slowly, to breathe and be patient, to forgive myself and the world for its failings, and to always choose to look anew, with fresh eyes, on any situation. To find beauty in the ordinary and yet stay connected to moments of magic and wonder, those elusive but persistent assurances that we are blessed, if we can remember to look both beyond and deep within ourselves.
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