Yet another YouTube video on how to beat procrastination later, the algorithm has probably picked up that I never will. All the more reason for it to continue suggesting more such videos. While the algorithm has not taken any responsibility of fixing me, it can continue to engage me. If I am meant to waste time, why not on its content as opposed to a rival's? Fair enough, I suppose.
Not that the video was a bad one. Deftly produced with the right amount of inset clips, slow zoom outs and relatability embedded in the script, it conveys what every well produced video on the topic should - that productivity can be enhanced and procrastination can be subdued by starting small, battling the amygdala (the primitive brain), System 2 dominance (rational thinking) etc etc. It even acknowledges that watching that very video is part of the easily pursued avoidance loop. Very self aware.
The ways I justify procrastination are many including some mentioned in the video. But in my universe, any delayed major project or lack of progress in the larger mission of life itself is most easily put down to the time not being right. The awareness that this excuse is not a valid one has never hindered me from using it. Decades of delay in the execution of grand plans is pinned on the lack of the necessary vibes. Hastily completed work after inordinate delays is celebrated as achievement and escape.
Even more dangerous is my tendency to retroactively frame delay and inaction as some sort of rebellion against the system. Every fictional and real rebel I have known or read about was completely invested in pushing their cause, however impossible, and sitting on their backsides is simply not in their script or their genes. Laziness cannot pass off as rebellion for very long no matter how many ways I try to spin it.
Through the sheer experience of multiple decades of inertia, I can claim professional acquaintance with 'just do it later'. I seem to be no longer burdened by guilt at my perceived lack of progress but at the same time, I do not revel in the easy releases of the avoidance loop either. There are many things that I wish I had already accomplished in life yet there is a certain peace in looking back at what I managed to do in spite of myself.
A particular insight came to me only last year, like an epiphany, while browsing a bookstore with fellow book lovers from Russia and Tajikistan whilst we were recommending personal favourites to each other. Without revealing the title of the book(s), all I will say is that the key plot climax at the end of a long quest in one of my favourite stories is the message "The answer is 42".
I was in my 20s when I first read this classic, the randomness and irreverence of this disclosure left everyone including the protagonist and me the reader scratching our heads while quietly giggling at the same time. The conclusion remained true to the spirit of the book which specialized in not taking anything too seriously and did so brilliantly.
A couple of decades later in that bookshop in Dehradun, the number 42 did not seem like such a random choice anymore. As it happens, I was by then already into my 41st year approaching the next, pleased as punch despite a generally ordinary existence. I realized that 42 could have been a secret reference to a certain magic age when regret nestles with realization, at peace with what could have been and what has. I certainly felt so in that moment.
It did help that besides being the author of one of my favourite books, the concerned writer had provided me with one of my favourite quotes of all time too. When in some moment of undeniable genius, he had said "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by", I knew I had to look no further for a guiding light.
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