the current incarnation of this site has been up over 4 years now. in the course of those years, there have been torrents of articles and near droughts of articles. let's be frank. the problem with the site right now and for the last couple months (read: maybe even the last few years) is that I've been suffering from an epic bout of writer's block. the other day, I sat down and decided that I want to churn out at least three hundred words for this site every other week. after writing the last sentence, I spent fifteen minutes staring at it and musing about how much more coffee I would need for the task. [around 185 words to go] then another fifteen minutes went by as I tried to block out the irritating conversation next to me by skimming over old unfinished posts. that's when I came across this:
I recently [written three years ago] noticed that after graduating, I began to explore my side-interests (chess, ultimate frisbee, etc) with much less enthusiasm. without school-work, work-work and other more pressing things to attend to, I didn't exert nearly as much effort in pursuing my side-interests.
the term "procrastination" really does not capture the excess that is apparent in what I am capable of. according to the online merriam and webster dictionary, the word "procrastinate" is defined as "to put off intentionally and habitually" or "to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done." notice the emphasis on intentionality. personally, I don't really choose not to do my work until the last possible minute; I am simply completely incapable of doing so. more detailed observations of productivity reveal that most people experience two critical points during the course of a long project: the "oh shit" point and the "fuck it" point. how momentous these events are vary from person to person. for instance, some people experience not so much an "oh shit" but a resigned "damn" moment when the assignment is given. some people experience a "holy fucking christ almighty shit shit shit shit shit" moment. some people's moments are so close together that the "oh shit / fuck it" dichotomy becomes a single "ah, hell" moment.
of course, once we begin establishing a pattern of behaviors applicable to a subset of humans, the question is how much further can we quantify this subset. the primary observed characteristic is a person's behavior in reaction to the "oh shit" moment. people not only vary in the duration and intensity of "oh shit" but their productivity levels in and out of "oh shit." in other pieces of unpublished writing, I documented two general reactions to "oh shit."
considering the working habits of smart people, one finds at least two kinds of smart. we'll call the first kind the "straight" smart. these are people who study x number hours a day, who make schedules and lists of things to do, who maintain normal sleeping schedules and generally remain productive members of society. they make steady progress through school and through life from point a to point b, operating within the confines of a rule-governed world.
the work of straight smart people seems only mildly affected by the "oh shit" moments; some are slightly hampered by the dread, some are slightly motivated, but almost all of them stick to study plans the professionals would generally consider "sane." this isn't to say that straight smart people don't occasionally have productivity meltdowns. generally though, a complete meltdown is less likely than with a "fringe" smart person.
the second kind is the "fringe" smart people who don't study, who don't go to class, who rarely sleep according to anything that could even in the loosest sense of the word could be be considered a "schedule" and who rarely make lists that aren't quickly swallowed under heaping piles of laundry. of course you realize that if you study 2 hours a day and go to every class and maybe maybe occasionally bought a textbook, you would have a phenomenal GPA and probably a great deal less stress. but, this is not interesting. what is interesting is watching TV, listening to music, playing video games and other behavior that can only be described as "dicking around." what is interesting is not spending a single second more than necessary on any given assignment. what is interesting is writing a paper by using a combination of fear, adrenaline and caffeine to forcibly eject it from your brain.
for the fringe smart, any attempt at productivity before "oh shit" is a lost cause. before an "oh shit" point, nothing can be done. let me qualify that: in the "pre oh shit" phase, nothing productive can be done in relation to the project causing the "oh shit" moment. fringe smart people are notoriously productive in ridiculously unproductive pursuits. when large projects are due, they are capable of producing incredible and irrelevant works and acquiring amazingly in-depth and useless information. they expend a fantastic amount of effort that could be better spent on task at hand. I am generally amused when I realize I spent more effort on figuring how to get out of a task than the actual task would've taken. they raise procrastination to an art form and occasionally get irritated when someone talks about how they procrastinated "sooooooo much" by watching tv for an hour or two. it's like telling a concert pianist you understand and respect their craft because you have chopsticks as a ringtone.
still, an interesting and important question is whether or not these high level productivity can be recreated in the absence of "oh shit" situations. I think this is what's currently wrong with the site. with the absence of significant "oh shit" moments, both productivity and creativity have been fizzling the last few years. thinking back, I'm not sure if it's ironic or fitting that blinkingtwelve.org began as a stack of html pages created by a bored and frustrated intern pretending to be busy to avoid meaningless projects, but it would definitely be sad if I am incapable of doing what I want to do because I don't have any work to avoid doing and because nothing is causing enough of an "oh shit" moment.
many who suffer from this "affliction" cope with it by attempting to create artificial "oh shit" situations. generally, this doesn't work well for me because my brain is so fantastical I tend to realize that I'm trying to fool myself. other methods of dealing with this involve just whining and bitching about it. sometimes I succumb to this tendency, but the causes and ramifications of bitching about something you have control over will be the topic for another post. for now, I've more than met my 300 word quota, so I can go back to doofing around.
