In contemplating my inaugural blog for this site, I found myself growing increasingly pensive. With what topic should I begin? What impression should I make? There’s much to talk about in the news, I’ve several social activism subjects close to my heart, I’ve even got a topic in law or two that I think might be of general interest. These kinds of topics all require research and drafting, though, and that seemed daunting – I’d already been procrastinating on a daunting professional project, and there I was, procrastinating on a personal project as well.
Before Sarah approached me about writing a Pittsburgh lady blog together, I’d been ruing the fact that I no longer blogged on my own. I had previously been a MySpace blogger (yes, 100 years ago), and then I had graduated to my own website (some blogs from which I plan to repost here, as I still think they are of their interest and enjoyable). An entire website had proven too time consuming, and I don’t know that it got much traffic anyway. My blogging lapsed. Blogging, of course, it must be said, is not a necessity – everyone enjoys a little narcissism, and are usually willing to indulge it in others, but it’s not as though there is an audience hungering for my thoughts on the tyranny of other people’s Facebook posts, the awful, interminable nature of basketball, or the former Pope’s beatification. Nevertheless, I am actually a trained writer (and a big Fuck You to the University of Michigan, but that’s a subject for another day), and I always have a vague sense that I should be writing, though it’s not really a pursuit of mine anymore, excepting academic work.
I had conceived a blog that I might begin myself. In my head, I had already titled it “The Duncan Street Palimpsest” and I planned to make it a repository of many projects and meanderings I wished to undertake. For instance, I am constantly saying that I will cook more, and so I thought I could do recipe blogs; I am constantly saying that I want to improve my knitting skills, and so I thought I could chronicle my crafting challenges; similarly, I am constantly asserting my desire to learn to sew, to garden, and to in general undertake the kind of betterment of self through skill acquirement that ambitious bloggers have been documenting for years now as they cook their way through massive tomes, recycle rubber bands into minidresses, and create communities for social justice activism and fatshion haute couture.
The problem, of course, is that I almost never undertake these projects. There are all sorts of explanations that a casual observer might surmise to be the cause of this inaction – laziness, fearfulness of failure, a variety of other unpleasant character traits.
As to fearing failure: meh. I’m pushing 30 and haven’t yet earned enough money, total, over my lifetime, to qualify for social security. I have two degrees I don’t use, I’m overdue on pretty much every bill, and none of this troubles me at all. I don’t pluck my eyebrows or shave my legs, and my dining room is filthy at the moment. I’ve got a different sense of the word failure than other people do, let’s say.
In my further defense, let me say that I am lazy, but not when I find the work to be important or enjoyable. I’m a good employee (I teach part-time), I’ve donated hundreds of hours of my time in the past to local political campaigns, I devote time to my own academic pursuits, and I read in my spare time with an eye towards what I hope is my intellectual improvement – nonfiction on various subjects, classics of literature, et cetera. But, true enough, I am sometimes lazy: if the task seems thankless or unimportant – say, that time I worked answering phones for a living – I do the bare minimum, if that. I don’t feel bad about this, either; my time and energy are finite and precious to me, and I see no reason to fritter them on anything other than what I personally wish. “Pride in a job well done,” without taking into account the nature of the job, is a capitalist lie inculcated in the working classes (blue- and gray-collar) to discourage them from refusing to work at degrading tasks for the enrichment of others, and I’ve no truck with that, thank you.
Still, learning to knit or sew, gardening, cooking, deploying my writing to the work of a worthwhile activist community, expressing myself through art or photography or music … these are not thankless or unimportant tasks. Many people undertake them with joy in their hearts and soon see gratifying results. And yet …
Well, a friend of mine put her finger on the problem quickly and succinctly: “You don’t want to do that shit. You just want to be the sort of person who does that shit. You want to be Mary Fucking Poppins.”
I think she’s right; I think, in the cases of many of my ambitions, I don’t actually want to do that shit – I just want to be the sort of person who does. Who doesn’t want to move through the world productively and creatively, mindful and ever-improving, delighting in the growth of skills and the expansion of interests, and receiving the just accolades of all who bear witness to their march of progress?
Except that shit’s hard. And there’s school, work, housekeeping (shudder), maintaining personal relationships, errands … and then I’m supposed to exercise, follow the news, do the basics that a human is supposed to do, I guess, and frankly, once all or at least a respectable amount of that is accomplished, I want to sit on my ass and read a book with a cat in my lap. Go to the bar. Go on a date. Take a fucking nap.
Still, I’m not a child, and I should make myself do some of the shit done by the people who are the sort of people who do that shit. I should write thoughtfully and undertake some of those projects; I should improve myself before I’m dead (though why I should do this, I can’t quite say).
Sarah says I’m completely thwarting the premise of this blog, which is meant to be the solution to both she and I feeling overwhelmed trying to take on bigger and more extensive blogging projects. Just write something. Toss something off. Whatever’s on my mind, it doesn’t have to be a project. That’s good advice. And you see, today, I’ve taken it – this blog required no research, no drafting, and no careful consideration whatsoever, nor did it require me to knit, sew, cook, read, watch, visit, learn, or work in general. High fives all around?
Still, in the future, I’d like to, y’know, maybe try to do some stuff. So if you see me blogging about falteringly attempting accomplishment, pat me on the back, internet-style. But if you also see me running on about where I just had dinner, y’know … don’t hold it against me. We can’t all be Mary Fucking Poppins.