Inspiration

This week I am taking a commenter's advice and sharing a quote which appears in Civilisation 4. It feels fairly apt for me at this moment. I made the decision a little while ago to pursue writing as a serious career, despite having no professional experience and without really having a clue how to make a living from it. I am making enough money to pay the bills by doing what is basically my old job, tech consulting, but the shine went out of that long ago now. I know where I want to go and have only a vague idea of how to get there, but that is enough to get started. Anyway, on with the quoting!

"One doesn't discover new lands without losing sight of the shore."
- Andre Gide

An interesting man who led an interesting life. One can see how he might be able to speak from experience.

Anyone who is used to working with creative people knows that they are often guilty of procrastinating. In fact, the better and more indispensable they are, the more infuriating they can be to work with.

I find myself guilty of procrastinating with a job I have at the moment. I have worked on several other jobs with this client and others before and since with no difficulty, but for some reason I can't seem to get this one done.

Why?

Most people I have spoken to about this and most things I have read have not asked why. They launch right into finding ways of getting the job done, but this is frustrating and pointless. I know how to get the job done. The problem is not that I can't do it or that I don't know how, it's that I don't want to, and I therefore find all manner of excuses and distractions to avoid doing it in the hope that it will simply go away.

The next response from people trying to be helpful is usually to find ways of wanting to do the job, along the lines of trying to make it interesting or doing a really good job I can be proud of. Again, the problem is not that I can't do a really good job, it's that it doesn't matter if I do or not, and therefore it is not interesting to me no matter how much we can argue about it. Nor do I need to go the extra mile and do a really good job for my own satisfaction and feeling of self worth. I am quite certain that I can do a really good job and I don't need an unnecessary outpouring of effort to tell me so. I would rather be pouring effort into something else where it does matter if I do a really good job or not, and I find that is what I have been spending my time doing instead.

I had this problem, if it can be called one, at school. I used to hate doing some assignments because they were boring and pointless and it didn't matter what I did because even the tiniest effort would have been sufficient. My teachers invariably tried to convince me that I should solve the problem of not enjoying my work by doing more of it, thinking that spending 6 hours on a pointless assignment instead of 2 would be somehow more rewarding.

When all arguments fail, the last resort is - 'but you have to do it'. I have always considered this to be weak-minded thinking. Surely no-one has to do anything. Perhaps in an extreme situation you may be killed if you don't do something, but that still doesn't mean you have to do it. In fact, many of the people we remember for their greatness (and are told to write assignments about) are people who stuck to their beliefs no matter who told them they had to do otherwise. Galileo, Sir Thomas More, that Jesus guy. It is harder to recall the names of great people in history who are remembered for doing what they were told with no better explanation than the depressing mediocrity of 'but that's reality'. Kevin Rudd seems to be making a spirited attempt to prove otherwise, but I digress.

Lest I be called a lazy curmudgeon, I should point out that instead of doing the assignments I considered pointless, I would instead devote my time to reading classic literature or writing short stories. Occasionally, if I felt provoked, I would engage my debating skills in writing an essay explaining why the assignment was pointless and handing that in instead.

In all my years of school I rarely did any homework and there were perhaps a dozen assignments I chose not to complete. Despite various threats and much cajoling, I can't remember ever getting into any serious trouble for this and I passed all my subjects with flying colours up until the point where I lost interest in school altogether and stopped going.

My point is this. When people procrastinate, it is sometimes with good reason. Perhaps they are afraid and need reassurance, perhaps they are wary, or even just plain against what is put in front of them. Aside from simple laziness, most forms of procrastination come from the gut, and the gut is usually worth listening to.

I don't want to do this job. It enriches neither me nor my client. The client will be happy with the smallest effort, in which case my creativity and expertise is not necessary, and a larger effort will simply mean I have spent more time on something unnecessary since the difference will not make much difference to what the client needs. My time is valuable, that is why I charge for it, and there are other things I would rather be doing. I could teach the client to do the job themselves, but they are not interested in that, and perhaps that fact most of all is the reason I am so indifferent. Because there is no incentive to learn, I don't have to do the job because if I don't do it, the client will simply keep waiting, get someone else to do it, do it themselves or decide it doesn't need doing. Thus there is nothing forcing me to change my stance.

Ethically, if I really don't want to do the job I should find someone who will, offer to show the client how to do it themselves or at the very least tell them I can't do it, and now I have become aware of the fact that I'm procrastinating and why, that is probably what I will do.

Or I could just stop my whining and do the damn thing. But that would be to miss the broader point about creative freedom, and indeed freedom in general. It was a wise man who said, freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them - and then, the opportunity to choose.

It may be easier and provide greater security to simply go along with what's expected, but as another great man, Benjamin Franklin, said famously:

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security."

I'll go with my gut thankyou.

Well that's how it worked out for one girl anyway. A girl called Courtney from Minnesota recorded herself crying watching the trailer for Pixar's Wall-E and posted it on YouTube. It's surprisingly emotional to watch...

Courtney got lots of grateful comments and emails through YouTube and on her blog saying how powerful it all was, and the folks at Pixar got wind of it and were obviously touched so they sent her a crew jacket and a nice note.

If that wasn't enough, Pixar then invited her to a private tour of Pixar Studios and to the movie premiere of Wall-E in San Francisco. They flew her in and put her up in a hotel. At the screening, this is what director Andrew Stanton had to say:

"Six months ago, when the first trailer for Wall-E came out, we were only halfway done with the film, and we weren’t exactly sure how we were going to get it done. We were exhausted. And then, one day, a movie showed up on YouTube showing a girl watching the trailer for Wall-E. And every time she watched it, she would cry on cue. When we saw that, we knew we were on the right track."

Can't wait to see this movie. My Mum goes hysterical every time she hears the little robot's voice.

On the 28th June 1969, the world's first gay pride march took place in New York in the wake of The Stonewall Riots, marking the beginning of the gay rights movement. In recognition of this, today's quote is from well-known gay author Armistead Maupin...

"The only thing I regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short."
- Armistead Maupin

Matt is a video game designer from Brisbane who quit his job after he realised he was very bad at it and decided to spend his time travelling around the world. Everywhere he goes he records a video of himself dancing to various songs and posts the videos on YouTube.

He has been doing this for a few years now and has gathered a worldwide following. He has just released a new video of him dancing in 42 countries over 14 months. If you think it sounds weird or silly, well it is, but watch it and I defy anyone not to have a big grin on their face by the end of it.

Steve Pavlina has posted a thoughtful essay over on his blog on what it takes for a man to live well in the age of consciousness.

Here's an excerpt:

A man is willing to make mistakes. He’s willing to be wrong. He’d rather try and fail than do nothing.

A man’s self-trust is one of his greatest assets. When he second-guesses himself by worrying about failure, he diminishes himself. An intelligent man considers the prospect of failure, but he doesn’t preoccupy himself with pointless worry. He accepts that if a failure outcome occurs, he can deal with it.

A man grows more from failure than he does from success. Success cannot test his resolve in the way that failure can. Success has its challenges, but a man learns more about himself when he takes on challenges that involve risk. When a man plays it safe, his vitality is lost, and he loses his edge.

Read the full essay here.