In Which I Remember How I Used To Compete with Myself

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I might find motivation if I could find a way to be contrary to myself.  You probably thought I was talking gibberish.  I was pretty sure I was talking gibberish.  (Gibberish and I have been very comfortable together for a very long time.)

But I remembered something.

Whenever I was supposed to get a task done quickly, I competed with myself.

Hm.  Is there any way to describe this that won't make me sound like I was slightly schizoid as a child...?  Probably not.

When I used to make my bed, I used to compete with myself to see who could make my bed faster...me or...me.  I used to imagine that there was, for lack of better terms, a parallel me in a different universe that was super speedy.  If I could make my bed faster than alternate-me made my bed, I won.  If I couldn't, I lost.

There was also a parallel me who took fast baths, who cleaned her room more quickly...  I recall beating her a few times.

Now if only I could find a similar--maybe less crazy--way to compete with myself.  (Parallel-me, I'm sure, has already written 3 novels by now...)

The Silly Things I Sometimes Ask the Internet

Sometimes, when I get bored or when I'm seeking out motivation, I google.

And in many instances, my friends, this is a very silly thing to do.

Just now, because I'm trying to work myself out of this armchair and over to my room to gather up dirty clothes and do my laundry, I googled "compelling reasons to do my laundry."  Hey, I thought, if anywhere can give me a REALLY compelling reason to do my laundry...

Try it.  You know you want to. 

It was super helpful, right?

As soon as I saw that lovely list of links, I thought: "Oh, you ridiculous person, you.  You have virtually no clean clothes left.  That is quite a compelling reason."

So now I'll do my laundry.

(But I guess I'm not entirely cured of my silliness if I blogged about it first.)

Notebooks, Notebooks, Everywhere

I really, really need to start keeping a notebook right next to me when I go to bed.  It wouldn't be terribly hard at all.  After all, my desk is right next to my bed.  It's there, because that's where it fits.  There's a semi-permanent bruise on my left leg to prove my desk's location.  (Really, it's kind of pitiful.  I mean, I know my depth perception is abysmal, but it's kind of silly to keep running into the same edge of the desk over and over again.)

Anyway.

Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I have these ideas.  Ideas that I could turn into a story.  Ideas that, at least as I'm falling asleep, seem very workable indeed.  But that I don't fully remember when I wake up.

Last night's was something about...pets.  What about pets?  Well, what about pets indeed.  Pets seems to be the only part of the thought that stuck in my head.  (Perhaps I'm subconsciously already preparing to be that crazy old maid with a lot of cats, except I'm not a big cat person and I'm mildly allergic so I'd end up being the hamster lady or the gerbil lady or the bird lady...all of which, incidentally, I've been told sound much more creepy than being a cat lady.)

I have a notebook that lives in my purse, a small one, for scratching down thoughts during the day.  Why shouldn't I have a night-time notebook?

Except I'm really scared of how ridiculous the ideas might look in the morning.  But then, there's a fine, fine line between ridiculous and great.

Possibility of Motivation

Motivation seems to be a tricksy little hobbit these days.  For me, anyway.

I can think of plenty of things to do, but actually finding some oomph with which to do them proves fairly difficult sometimes.

A groundbreaking conclusion occurred to me recently: that's mostly my fault.

Well, okay, pretty much all my fault.

In pondering how I've managed to motivate myself in the past, I've come to realize that I have a certain streak of stubbornness that has lent itself in my favor.  Accompanying that, intertwined in much the same fashion as a vanilla-chocolate-twist cone, I also have a streak of contrariness.

There are a worrisome number of instances where I went ahead and did something because someone emphatically told me I couldn't do it.  It was impossible.  Wouldn't happen.  No go.

To which I said: well, you just watch me.  I don't care what you say!

Psychologists would, I'm sure, have something to say about this.  But then, psychologists would have something to say about most things.  That doesn't make them right.  It just makes them people who are able to have conversations. 

Anyhow.  These days I find that the one person to whom I will accede is, well, myself.  I would never listen to anyone else who told me that I couldn't learn the guitar or write a decent novel or be competitive enough for admission for yet another advanced degree.

It would seem the most ready solution to this problem would be to find a way to be a little, well, schizoid.  If I could convince myself to be contrary to...myself...I almost feel as though I'd be doing more.  Achieving more.

Or maybe not.  Maybe I'd just be that much more crazy.

Due For a Change? I Can't Decide...

There are some days, more than others, where I can tell that I really miss being in school.

All of a sudden, in the middle of answering someone's question, I will realize that I have subconsciously been analyzing--the last movie I saw, the last book I read, something I read a while ago but have just suddenly had an ephiphany about.

And at these moments I miss school, because when you have these epiphanies, nobody looks at you as though you're utterly crazy.  If you dare voice these epiphanies, they nod along because even if they don't agree with the line of reasoning--they follow.

These days I don't voice these things aloud, because in an office environment, people tend to treat such behaviors as...well...crazy.

In all fairness: how many people stop, frozen, in the middle of their workdays because a sonnet is echoing in their heads.  Or because, as happened the other day while sitting in the midst of what felt a swarm of people who were all talking all at once, suddenly Walt Whitman made much more sense?

I'm willing to bet: not many.

This happens to be more and more frequently lately.  E.D. Hirsch pops up in my recreational reading.  It suddenly seems important to re-attempt The Great Gatsby.  (I didn't much care for it the first time around, but then, I was seventeen.  Maybe I'd like it now...although after reading This Side of Paradise, I'm pretty sure my original impression of Gatsby was pretty much spot-on: Fitzgerald writes wonderful prose, but I pretty much hate all of his characters.)  People are starting to resemble book characters, book characters are echoing elsewhere in the real world.

At the moment, I'm treating this as a cue to look back into Ph.D. programs.  We'll see if this time around I manage to stick out the whole process.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll find another way to silence the echoes.  Or at least quiet them a little.

A Memory

Lately, one particular memory keeps coming to mind. It first popped in after I was thinking about being childlike, but it just keeps popping back into my head now and again.

And this is the memory.

A few years ago, I was staying for a couple of days with my sister and her family in Lehi. I believe my purpose in staying there had something to do with "helping" as I awaited hearing back about various job applications and, in general, tried not to be too maddened by my then-unemployed state.

I say "helping," because I'm never quite sure how much my presence helps. I mostly tended to distract the kids or talked to my sister once they'd gone to bed or I just helped herd them as she ran errands.

Anyway, one of the mornings I was there, I remember sitting at the counter. My niece (who would've have been, oh, two going on 3 or so at the time) was my breakfast companion. She had already aptly observed that my eye looked different, and I told her I hadn't yet put it in. She didn't know what to think of that comment until later when she watched me put in my prosthetic.

As we ate, she scrutinized my face in that way only a very small child can, then announced: "You have freckles, just like me." If she'd been older, I probably would have made a sarcastic comment about the wonders of genetics. Or maybe I wouldn't have, I don't know, because the way she pronounced the statement very much said: we're alike, we two, with our freckles. And because I've found a way that you are like me, I wholeheartedly accept you.

Random Birthday Thoughts

Last weekend marked that most auspicious of occasions, yea verily, my birthday.

Except that I can't particularly claim to find any of my birthdays too terribly auspicious. That's the thing about time passing and becoming another year older: 28 doesn't feel different than 27; 27 didn't feel different than 26. I don't even think turning 30--when it happens in a couple of years--will be all that big a deal.

I could be wrong. We'll see.

The older I grow, the less I care about whether there are big celebrations. Except, of course, that I always love the time I get to spend with family. Particularly when I get to spend time watching one of the cutest little girls on the planet. (My niece, Abigail.)

I think I'm going to maintain that my birthday present to myself--which won't be gifted to me until later--is going to be having some kind of adventure. What kind of adventure? I don't know. But an adventure nonetheless.