Procrastination Station & the Horrors of Keeping a Journal

It's more than five months and, finally, I am writing a post again. What the hell took me so long? I only have two excuses - and quite lame ones at that:

1. I took time out to write my first novel. Yes, at last I got that done, after years of procrastination and putting it off for a myriad of reasons - at least HURRAH for that, though. However, the fact that the time period I took off to solely focus on my novel was a period of about five weeks from late July to the end of August hardly justifies...ahem...this ridiculous lapse in time re my blog...
2. It was a rollercoaster of an end of year for me, more taxing and nerve-racking than most other years during the same period. I simply wasn't in the mood most days.

Truth be told though, the time just dragged on and on. At first I meant to get right back into it by late August. But then I was too tired of writing and being all damn 'creative', so I gave myself some weeks off, thinking I'd come back by late September. Big fat mistake. Before I knew it, each passing big and momentous event in the world or issue that left me shouting at the television or at my computer screen or simply moved me in itself became yet another Great Wall of China in my blogging psyche.

The red toxic tide in Hungary, the ongoing saga and eventual joyful release of the trapped Chilean miners, the hijack of the Irish economy by financial terrorists, the never ending scandals emanating from Wall Street, the student riots in the UK - their importance and my need to have an opinion on them snowballed to the extent that all they could do was induce mounting writing debt for me and, eventually, total inertia. An inertia that has lasted over five months.

It is also the inertia of procrastination. I, like the vast majority of human beings, am a procrastinator of note. And, no, I do not like that about myself. It impedes me, it stalls me, it makes me less than I can be. It can even be exhausting to procrastinate for too long. As William James said, "Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task." How true.

It isn't just about procrastination, however. I'm also bloody lousy at keeping a journal, and always have been.  I wish it wasn't so. After all, as an aspiring writer surely the keeping of a personal diary should be something that comes naturally for me, something I should relish doing nearly every day, right? Wrong. At least for me, the keeping of a journal is like being stuck in therapy for perpetuity with the most boring psychiatrist on the planet. I'm not the world's worst therapy patient for no reason. It does start as a liberating, fun experience that I look forward to faithfully doing every day. Then it creeps up on me - after a few weeks the joy has become a chore and then a grind and then an almost-evil exercise in futile self-importance to be dreaded and even hated. Finally, the despicable journal is a gargantuan anchor on me the size of which could sink the Titanic.

I commenced a journal on my birthday this year, with much aplomb and self-belief. Barely over two months later I was so utterly bored with the whole process which I saw as self-indulgent and plain boring. The journal got trashed. In the paper recycling bag, of course. In that very instant the sense of relief was enormous. What a drag it was to feel obliged to write about my day and my thoughts and my hopes and my aspirations and my frustrations and all the rest of that blah day in and day out. Just awful.

The terrific thing about getting older is that one becomes a lot more forgiving about one's shortcomings and so much more ready to embrace who one is. Thank goodness for that. I am at peace with the fact that I find keeping a journal a tedious affair. So bloody what? I may wish to curb the ease with which I procrastinate, but I do not wish to curb that which feels like its sapping the life out of me. My final acceptance of my hate of journal-keeping was an important self-realization this year - a definite silver lining in my dark blogging cloud.

Blogging is a form of keeping a journal, whatever the topic and whatever anyone may think or argue to the contrary. So, what to do then? Cease with this blog? For now, no. I do still like the idea that motivated me to start this blog in the first place. The idea that I can use this as my platform to rant and rave on all those issues that stir me one way or the other. And I do like the fact that it does keep me more on my toes with regard to the issues that I find important and opens me up even more to those people and opinions that I feel make a difference.

So, I'll keep with this 'electronic journal' for now, and see where it takes me in 2011. In any case, it sure beats the wretched anchor that is a daily personal journal.