Knowledge, Wisdom, other.

So I’ve decided that major reforms aren’t in order – thank you Michael. However, I wanted to try something a bit different so I’ll try and inject it somewhere in the ensuing entry.

I finished watching American Beauty about 30 minutes ago, my word is that film thought-provoking. Needless to say I cried in certain points and one line in particular has implanted itself into my memory already: “There’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary.” Well I’d say I’m pretty much 50/50 split on my agreement with that. Sure, ordinary can be boring – doing the same thing day in, day out, meeting the same people, being the same person, conforming to “their” standards and living a desperately prescribed life. However, on the flip side of the coin ordinary can be amazing. Surely ordinary is a calm, relaxing and peaceful state? Ordinary is beige, not glaringly bohemian yet by no means resignedly dull either. Ordinary, like beige, is a haven from the extremes we create in our lives. Ordinary is good once in a while, and we would do well not to synonamise ordinary with boring.

Additionally, the writer brought up the issue of beauty. Not chick-flick, skin deep “How big are your boobs?” beauty, but true natural beauty. And to me true beauty is really hard to find. I’m quite willing to admit that I’m often so engrossed in my ultimately insignificant quotidienne that I often ignore what is all around me, and I expect that it is this that makes me so ignorant to the beauty of things around me. But beauty is a concept, and I fear it’s one I don’t fully understand. Not through lack of trying. I, I just tend to think about things too much? And often I attribute what some would class as beauty to other things. I can’t really explain it, as you’ve already seen – in fact, I made quite the pig’s ear of that entire section!

So I’ll move on. I wrote a short poem earlier and this is where I risk offending the masses. I’m not a writer, I have very little knowledge of the intricacies of the English language and I don’t particularly like making things follow a pattern if I’m streaming my thoughts. The following isn’t meant to sound pretentious, or naïve, though I fear it will tick both of the boxes on the shameful list.

I can’t describe what I know,
for what I know and believe
are to me a kin yet to you,
lies.

And when I try to tell myself
that the truth I know is false,
I can muster no belief
and I question truth, not self.

When posing question to a truth,
the answer can merely be thought,
and thoughts are born of mind
so to question is to think?

And if to question is to think,
then an answer is to know.
How do I know if I do not question?
And who do I question, who answers?

I cannot question of myself,
for no answer will come of knowledge,
knowledge which comes from question.
I am never to know, but always to question.

Still it plagues me,
question – why?

Yeh, so there it is. Essentially it’s confusion mixed with desperate attempts at reason thrown into some sort of literary format. Perhaps next time I should confine my less legible thoughts to my head!

Lack of legibility – this leads me nicely onto the topic of history homework. Now, if you’ve ever studied the Napoleonic regime with particular reference to the centralisation of French government then please feel free to comment and give me any pearls of wisdom which you wish to share. Because I think it’s safe to say that I haven’t got a clue. I’ve been trying (well, sort of thinking about whilst doing other things) to make an information sheet about the aforementioned area but I’ve had little (read:no) success! So I guess I’ll do what the Bourbon Monarchy did and just give up the ghost!

As I shall with this post, I’m not going to make my next posts too long because I’d risk writing everything I have to say at the moment in a few posts, where I could span it out and not have to worry about what to write. Worry not, I have many many thoughts to come!

For now, however, I bid thee farewell.

Procrastination does not make a good friend.

Well, firstly allow me to apologise for the 2 days in between this and the previous post. Now, I could say that I’ve been mightily busy or over-worked etc. Whereas, the truth is that I hadn’t a clue what I was going to write in my next post so I put it off. Convincing myself that this would just be a week-nights weblog and that nobody would read it regardless of when I wrote the next entry. To a certain extent I was right.

Procrastination: the deferment or avoidance of an action or task to a later time and is often linked to perfectionism.
(I must state at this point that procrastination in my case is more due to laziness than perfectionism! And also that finding relevant images for procrastination is near impossible.)

There are times in our lives when the inevitable and the desirable are worlds apart. Times when we would give anything to be somewhere else, doing something different. And occasionally during these times we manage to get our own way. We fake illness, we run away, or (more commonly) we simply put off the undesirable until later.

This, unfortunately, is common in my life. I tend to lack motivation for anything that does not enthrall me or benefit me directly and instantly. I am, in this respect, very much like a chinchilla. I lack foresight and have excess cheek space. I find it hard to sit down and do something, for example, if the deadline is weeks, or even days, away. With college work I guess that some putting-off is inevitable and normal. But In my case the things I do instead of work are frankly pathetic.

History essay on the topic of “The Role Of The Girondins In The French Revolution” vs. Gears Of War on Xbox 360. Now, if I were a committed student there would be no choice, but alas I am not. Not only am I lacking motivation, but my choice of replacement activity has absolutely no utility whatsoever! So is there a difference between putting-off work do do something worthwhile (by which I am not referring to Xbox) and putting off work for the simple reason of not wanting to do work?

Yes. Procrastination for procrastination’s sake (or for the sake of anything less worthwhile than the original task) is laziness. Putting off a history assignment to save the lives of orphans in a developing country, for example, is less procrastinating, and more prioritising for the greater good. So I have now found my excuse to put off doing things I don’t want (or am simply too idle) to do. I’m doing something for the greater good.

Unfortunately this is the heart of my problem. Instead of cracking on with the task in hand I spend more thinking up excuses and justifying it to myself. It wasn’t uncommon for me in my earlier years of high school to not do a piece of homework, but then spend hours that evening thinking of a waterproof excuse to give the teacher for not having done it. Estimated time doing work would take – 30 minutes. Time taken thinking about work having not done it – 2 hours. And even though the numbers didn’t add up eventually this became routine. I’m now so practiced at convincing myself that things can wait that I, at times, find it impossible to motivate myself.

And would you look at that, I’ve entered a loop! The more I procrastinate the more it becomes acceptable. The more acceptable it becomes the more I procrastinate! So how do I break the loop? That’s not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don’t know.

Having read all of that through I’ve realised that I haven’t really made a point, and I haven’t even made it interesting. I guess for me the fact that I actually wrote anything is significant. I tend to set up this sort of account, write one post then leave it alone for…well, forever.

So I’m sorry this is a crap post. I shall endeavor to have some interesting thoughts tomorrow. And I shall try to write every evening this week! Possibly with the exception of Thursday which will be the last day of school. (ok, that was added on Thursday evening – really not in a writing frame of mind. Sorry!)

Sorry again!