{"id":3321,"date":"2022-04-07T03:59:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T08:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/18.217.136.120\/?p=3321"},"modified":"2022-12-22T03:13:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T08:13:13","slug":"im-procrastinating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/?p=3321","title":{"rendered":"Procrastination and Punditry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0<\/strong>Jim Sleeper<\/strong><\/a> (December, 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m procrastinating. I\u2019m procrastinating so badly that yesterday, in a holiday, end-of year mood, I read Samuel Johnson\u2019s essay on procrastination<\/a> in the June 29, 1751 edition of The Rambler<\/em>. That leaves many more essays to read on this subject as I gather my strength and resolution for the greater work I intend to complete in the coming year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I certainly can\u2019t afford not<\/em> to complete it. As I read other writers\u2019 richly-sourced, deeply intuited \u2013 nay, oracular \u2013 work, I’m reminded that this desperate world can\u2019t afford my procrastination any more than it could afford theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even the great Samuel Johnson procrastinated. He even postponed completing his sentences so often that, at times, he sounded like Mark Twain\u2019s German professor, who was so old that he died before he got to the verb. Here is Johnson: \u201cThough to a writer whose design is so comprehensive and miscellaneous that he may accommodate himself with a topic from every scene of life, or view of nature, it is no great aggravation of his task to be obliged to a sudden composition, yet I could not forbear to reproach myself for having so long neglected what was unavoidably to be done, and of which every moment\u2019s idleness increased the difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So writes Johnson. At least, I’ve been told on good authority that that’s writing. But maybe he was only trying and failing to acknowledge that although his far-ranging interests should have made it easy to pick a topic for a column, he dithered too often to decide. Or so I’ve decided about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There, you see? I can complete important work if I must! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again, isn\u2019t each of my own columns a kind of dithering or a simulation of bold action on some distant and therefore seemingly manageable problem? Instead of slaying dragons, aren\u2019t I just slaying earthworms, as I do sometimes in Salon — for example, on the eve of the 2020 election<\/a>.You may wonder which earthworm I’ll slay next. I forbear to answer that question. Before I strike at the next monster, I\u2019ll want to have done the careful, painful preparation necessary to landing the fatal blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m working on it. As you can see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do be patient. Think of all the things you’ve<\/em> pretended to have done but haven\u2019t. You’ve pretended that you\u2019ve read certain books when, really, you\u2019ve read only the reviews. And then there are things that you really did read but pretend that you haven’t. (My columns here in Salon,<\/a> for instance,) That isn\u2019t procrastination on your part. It\u2019s merely perversity, a separate subject for another time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some journalists believe that curiosity and judgment run in one direction only \u2014 from us scribblers to whomever we write about, but never the other way \u2019round. Behind all the excitement that we generate, we’re distracting your attention from our foibles. Maybe we’re even distracting ourselves. Then again, maybe our sensation mongering is another way of procrastinating against accomplishing whatever we’ve truly been put on earth to do. (Whatever that is.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Orwell resisted such distractions when he tried to tell some big, painful truths about the Spanish Civil War \u2013 for example, that the left’s Stalinist, Communist heroes in that fateful conflict were murdering the democratic-socialist left as much as they were murdering fascists.  Orwell’s truth-telling was suppressed or studiously ignored<\/a><\/strong>, his motives questioned by people who didn’t question their own. My own motives may have been questioned that way at times, but what really annoys me is procrastination itself. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator, that\u2019s<\/em> the problem. So, I\u2019d better get back to work.<\/a> When I\u2019ve completed it, if I ever do, surely someone will be wise and bold enough to publish it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Jim Sleeper (December, 2022) I\u2019m procrastinating. I\u2019m procrastinating so badly that yesterday, in a holiday, end-of year mood, I read Samuel Johnson\u2019s essay on procrastination in the June 29, 1751 edition of The Rambler. That leaves many more essays to read on this subject as I gather my strength and resolution for the greater work I intend to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3986,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions\/3986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimsleeper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}