In my experience it is not good to rush some creative moments. There are at least two aspects of this. The first is that I can get my mind set that a certain set of circumstances are going to be the context for the work only to have someone change something fundamental – the budget, timeline, venu, etc. With so many players in the piece at the ROM I sense that this is about 100% likely to happen in the next few days.
Secondly and most significantly, listening to that other space is essential – the space beyond my personal mind where better answers to good questions come from. A few “sleeps” improves the quality of what I’m up to immeasurably.
So I am quite the procrastinator in some areas of my life – like in producing a creative brief for the May exhibit. I do know that I must produce a good draft on Monday or risk putting the whole show in jeopardy.
I was whimsically considering how my mind distracts me when this invisible process is unfolding. There are numbers – counting things. For example, I noticed many days ago that these writings go from page 1 to page 2 somewhere around lines 44 to 46. So I will look down occasionally (like now!), see that I am at line 20 and calculate that I’m about 48% of the way to being able to call this a two page document. If I’m not too excited about what I’m writing I do more calculations – go figure (joke!)
Then there are a growing variety of computer games that I can play using my Morse Code interface. Freecell is my stand-by since I stop using a Mac (traitor!) a few years back. Macs have a built in jigsaw puzzle program where you can insert one of your own photos or drawings. I miss that distraction in a big way.
Recently I was introduced to Farmville on Facebook. That promises to be a very effective tool of distraction! A player even gets ribbons for ever higher levels of time wasting behaviour.
I used to be an avid builder of Sim Cities. When I built my first one I sat for 5 hours straight thinking I had been at it for maybe 1 ½. No wonder my aging butt hurts so much! The Windows Vista OS doesn’t run Sim programs, much to my despair. Just what was the point of Vista anyway? Last week Nick introduced me to a program called Virtual Computer that partitions part of the hard drive and allows the owner to use an older Windows OS. I have downloaded Sim Towers, but not yet actually used it. Farmville!
I do not have a TV as I consider the whole thing to be designed to make one stupid. Nevertheless, Nick eagerly downloads episodes of House for me. One show lasts just as long as his evening break. It is to our mutual advantage that I have become rather interested in this melodramatic hospital show.
And the most effective tool of procrastination of all is to do something else that I have been meaning to get around to but: “haven’t had the time”. Just as some suddenly discover a closet that NEEDS reorganizing the day before a big exam, I have a storehouse of old e-mails and other writings that can easily become suddenly urgent and take up a couple of hours of creative space.
This is line 5 on page 2! Good night!
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