Procrastinaception, what?

I’m at that level where it’s hard to even call it procrastination anymore.

I have these little niggling things called Internal Assessments that are worth about 30% of my overall grade for year 12. They’re not really that fun. And it seems like I’ve gone to great lengths- extraordinary lengths- to avoid even starting them. I mean, you can go on facebook and YouTube for a while before you resort to playing on your iPod for hours on end but eventually you get bored of that as well.

I’ve hit that point where I’ve procrastinated so much I’m bored of not doing my work. I’m effectively procrastinating my procrastination. You’d think that once I’d get bored of casual internet browsing I would return to my studies... but you would be mistaken, my friend. It’s not an easy thing to admit and I am honestly ashamed, but from about 8:15 to 9:50 tonight I just sat staring at the blank screen of my laptop- not even my screensaver of dancing Chinese women.

It’s the thoughts that went through my head during this period that I’d like to briefly share right now- briefly because I was only able to actually start writing at about 11:15 and I’m tired and worn out from all my doing nothing. Okay so let’s go (I feel like this deserves an intro song or something to be honest)…

Brandon’s stream of consciousness in the 95-minute period of his Wednesday night where he stared at a blank screen! (Title could be catchier I must admit)

·      First came convincing myself that I was only taking a short break, only resting my eyes etc. I call this the ‘piss-poor excuses’ phase.

·      Next was the sudden and shocking realisation that my mind had got into this rut and that I was stuck- this is when I knew that I wasn’t going to be escaping this position for a while.

·      THE GUILT. This was arguably the most tormenting stage of my ordeal. It’s honestly quite painful to hate yourself so much for not doing something about your current situation and yet still not changing it. This is a stage that never really ended, to this moment.

·      After the guilt came a false sense of acceptance, where I was trying to once again convince myself a series of lies, fallacies and fairytales… “This is giving my mind a rest” “I wouldn’t be doing homework anyway” and so on, and so forth…

·      THE GUILT (again) Second time always hits harder

·      For some reason it was at this point where I began to think of the fictional citizens of an iPod game I discovered yesterday where you take control of a street and it’s businesses and tenants and try to expand it. I thought of the little pixelated men and woman in my pizza shop and hospital and whether any of them had to write an economics portfolio due in the next week. This thought was a mental vacation from the inevitable-

·      THE GUILT!!!!!

·      Now began the winding down stage of my ordeal; I began to muster up the mental strength to be able to pull myself out of the spiral, but not before getting furious at myself and calling myself such names as ‘fucking wank hobo slut’ and ‘useless pregnant dog cunt'. Creativity is a dangerous and pitiful tool when mixed with anger.

·      The anger turned to frustration and the frustration turned into hatred of others- this is when I knew I was getting back to normal.

·      My final thought as I summoned my muscles to physically snap out of my statuesque stupor was of nothing. It was as if in that one moment I had managed to subconsciously convince myself that the last one-and-a-half hours or so never happened.

But of course, they did happen. And when I remembered them again approximately seven seconds later THE GUILT was back and I almost cried.

In between 9.50 and 11.15 I opened up a word document, the one named after my assignment. I stared at the page but forced myself to type something, not letting myself snap back into the last 90 minutes of my life- that was never. to. happen. again. No, I forced myself. I put every ounce of mental power into this word document and typed.

*Approximately 85 minutes and zero facebook breaks later, I knew I had done all that I could.*

Tonight I wrote 159 words. It’s all I’ve done this entire week, but guess what?

I'm genuinely proud.