seems to be worse these days.. it’s always one of those obstacles that I need to move around in my life. I sit to do something and find suddenly that there is something way more pressing to do peering at me out of the corner of my eye. Ah – just do that.. then… but the ‘then’ keeps being put off and put off. There are self-help books galore on this very topic so it is not mine to own or even really complain about as I am sure there are those who are far worse than I!
But for now.. this bit of it is mine… it is the monster in the room.. the many-headed fiend that sits in the corner and jumps at me constantly through the day. Maybe if I personalise him – it, she.. who knows the gender of this one?.. Seems like a ‘he’ to me..
‘He’ has many arms and he has a scraggly furred body.. half put on clothes if you can call them that – and a face that looks like it could do with a good wash. Oh – but then he changes .. sometimes he is so attractive, so sleek and good looking that who could turn away from him.. enticing me to move into anything other than what I have sitting in front of me.
For now, it is writing .. yes Shazar this has been in front of you each and every day of your life it seems – but only gets done when the last deadline is there the last moment to catch up the pen or the laptop and start to pound out something .. anything to get it done. Just write they say .. just sit and write whatever comes into your head.. “well I am actually much better at doing that on my notepad or in my journal – so shall I turn to that for now.” Mmm there is.. “caught you.. sneaky procrastination” ..change .. do something different .. it will be better like that.
It’s not true Shazar.. it is not like that at all.. that is simply yet another rabbit hole – let your fingers move – they can move just as quickly as the pencil on the paper and they can write just as much rubbish in this way as they can on paper.
Where am I? it seems even worse in this time.. this time of the ‘virus’.. there is a blob of fear in the back of my mind.. not a fear of dying – not a fear of the virus catching up with me.. if it does then it does.. then I am sick for a while or I die. But it’s not that.. it’s a fear of this will not change – that we will have to go on like this for too long and that many other bad things can happen along the way .. the controls, the prisons built around us as we sit in our houses thinking we are secure from the world.
Fear that I shall never come out of this doldrums that I am in .. that the monster that is procrastination will overcome me finally and engulf my whole way of being. That I will never have my true voice free and flowing again – that I can never visit with my family in India again – even that none of this matters -the complacency will overwhelm me. So many diverse and wondrous fears – and they go on…. that I am being spied upon as I write.. that all the conspiracy theories of the world are true and we will never be free again ….
I have had a life. Oh, such a life I have had .. of wondrous freedoms – of discovering that I could do and be whoever I wanted to be .. and go wherever I wanted to go.. often to places others feared and thought I was crazy to go… but I was free to go. and today my biggest fear is that I will no longer be permitted to go to the beach .. to the ocean to feel the freedom of the sand beneath my feet and the water washing away the stresses and weirdness of the day.
So where is this going.. again .. nowhere.. I don’t have any answers.. I would like to come to a conclusion of this ramble and find the kernel of truth .. the wise words – that light that shines through to be able to say ah ha… I have found my way out of the maze .. and offer it to you so that you too can walk the winding path to the light ..and feel relieved and happy and ready for your day and your week and be able once again to contribute.. for that is really all I wish to do. To contribute in some way so that the world becomes a lighter brighter place.. but the fires of my contribution feel dimmed – sat upon by the procrastination monster.. the monster of complacence.. let’s just do this or that and then one day I shall wake up and the world will feel right again.
But it is not .. and I am not – and today I am here stuck – jammed.. paralysed – “but no you are not paralysed .. and certainly if you were you would really have something to complain about”.. God that sounds like someone way back in my family .. telling me to think of the children in China who only had a little rice to eat… but today I think of the children in India and they are my friends – I know them and I see them and they are not faceless kids who need a rice bowl. and I cannot simply collect pennies into the rice bowl and send it to them and make them all better.
Things feel much more complicated than that today
– but are they ..
– are they really?
Postscript: and tonight I speak with my colleagues in India and suddenly I have something to do .. I can help there.. I can make a small difference in those lives .. something – anything I can do .. I can step up.
And the monster gets back in its box in the corner of the room.. No – don’t be fooled – he/she/it has not gone.. but is simply in its place until the next excuse to unbox it and bring it into the open to challenge me to step out of my self-castigation and into the place where my light shines through.
All hail Monster who’s name is Procrastination for you to help me to see yet more of myself.. that complex yet simple being who wishes only to discover the true.