The day began with a dog riot.
On occasion, our dogs — for no reason that I can discern — go absolutely and completely bonkers, barking at nothing, and running around the house like Timmy has fallen in the well, or like a mongrel canine horde is beating down our front door. Yet, if you go to the window and look out, there’s absolutely nothing going on. And I mean nothing. Maybe — just maybe, if you look hard enough — you can see a leaf turning over in the wind in the yard. Yet, the dogs are going insane.
The dog riot happened while I was working through a particularly dense part of Proudhon’s What is Property?. Being the responsible scholar that I am, I was trying to check my own recollection of this text against what I’d just written in the chapter about property in the book I’m working on. I was hoping that this wouldn’t take too long and that I could return to writing quickly, but when you have two dogs barking at top volume and running around the house, any kind of theoretical thought becomes impossible. So, the dog riot took me away from my book, because I couldn’t think straight with the noise. Then, the Ubuntu Feisty update manager had some fresh updates, so I downloaded those and let the updates run. Then, my email client beeped, and I checked that and responded to an email. Then, I needed more coffee, so I got up and got more coffee. At that point, I got ready to open my feed reader to check my RSS feeds, and then I realized that I was in a giant, vicious circle designed to suck me away from my writing, and it all seemed to happen so effortlessly. It was a smooth flow of things that gradually took me further and further away from being productive, into territory where I could waste massive amounts of time without the arduous task of actually having to think about how I was going to best shape my argument in Chapter 3.
If you write, you probably have similar distractions, and this whole vicious circle probably looks stunningly familiar in process, if not in particulars. Distractions are easy to find, and procrastination on the Internet has probably destroyed a thousand Shakespeares. And before I get myself further afield and become one of the bodies strewn about on the field of the battle with procrastination, I’m now going to stop procrastinating, re-read the Proudhon and Kropotkin I need to trudge ahead in this chapter, and close out this blog entry.
p.s. Thanks to everyone for the comments in various entries. When I’ve met my writing quota for the day, I’ll respond to them appropriately 
{ 12 comments }
yeah my dog will sleep all day then she snaps and runs in circles around the house really really fast this also happens with the cat but she likes to run over the bar stools in the basement making them rock back and forth
“Property is robbery yes but with out a risk to the robber†I believe its form Proudhon
I have been getting in to bob black is abolition of work is grate. I use to lock my self in a room put good head phones on listen to music with out vocals and read or right its blocks out a lot of distractions but hunger and having to go to the bathroom.
just typed in bob torres and found this link
http://www.bobtorresproperties.com/index.htm
another with a diffrent dream for the World and another bob in love with bowfishing.my name brings up a hocky player. I Feel sports are one of the biggest wastes ever. go figger
My puppy Cosmo has found a new toy. My strapless bra. He runs around the house with it, growls at it, and essentially trys to kill it. It isn’t a comfy bra, I just wasn’t aware my pooch needed to protect me from it.
Every so often I fancy myself a writer. Once I read an essay on how not to be a writer, I think by Neil Gaiman. Don’t write every day. Take lots of breaks. Etc, etc. This reminded me of that. Congrats to you for staying on point.
Our cat housemates occasionally tear through the house in what looks like a panic… except that it usually ends in a full-fledged kitten wrestling session, complete with vigorous head-kicking. (All very good-natured.) Maybe the dogs are just having some fun with each other?
Oh man, when isn’t tinkering with Ubuntu a distraction? I don’t know about being distracted from writing, but I often find having the net hanging around in the background to be useful at work. I do use it to fill in the dull spots, but it’s there at the drop of a hat when I need to check on something… and I usually don’t get caught up in an endless Wikipedia trail!
@maria: heh. Animals just go wild. IT can be fun sometimes..but other times, it can just be too insane.
@brad: Nice Proudhon quote. It could certainly be him– sounds like him! As for headphones, I do wear them a bit too, but almost nothing can block out the insanity when our dogs start going bonkers. Oh, also, the other Bobs Torres out there: yes, there are a few. I’ve know about them for some time, and the bow hunter one is funny, too, when you think about how at least one other Bob Torres is a vegan.
@Drasch: don’t all dogs love all things undergarment? It is kinda weird, but they’re all like perverts.
@Ari: yeah, they do have their play barking sessions too. These are different: like they’re protecting the house from….NOTHING! I don’t get it, but hey, they’re our companions, so I put up with it, because I love them so damn much.
@nicole: Yeah, I think I use Linux because it gives me the opportunity to tinker endlessly. I love messing with stuff, and GNU/Linux gives me that chance pretty much whenever I want. And the upside of having used Linux for so long is that now I can pretty much fix whatever I break
BTW, what distro do you like these days? Feisty really is the hottest I’ve ever used, and I’ve used a lot over the years!
I just love being able to go “Hmm, I need a program for this…” and hitting up the repositories, and there it is! Wonderous. I’m using Edgy Eft at the moment, although i’ve pilfered one or two updates for programs etc when I was setting up Bisley the laptop. I’m happy to wait for the proper release of Feisty - but it does look damn good! I’m so chuffed with how easy it is to use Ubuntu. Especially for someone who’s only been using Linux as her primary OS for a few years
Bob, I thought of you last night when I looked at my blog stats and saw that I had two hits based on someone (or two someones) searching “procrastinate”. heh.
@alli: thanks for the pointer to Gaiman. I’ll have to check that out — it sounds fun.
@nicole: yeah, I hear you. The repositories are fairly complete, and basically, every itch I’ve had I’ve been able to scratch with an apt-get update. I run the 64-bit version, and it is rockin’ fast. I love it. I go back to my Mac or to the Windows box we have here, and I just feel like I’m wading through waist-deep muck. Anyway, I think you’ll like Feisty. It is great.
@deb: hmm! someone googling “procrastinate” because that’s what they were doing? Classic.
I relate a 1000% on the distractions. I like the discipline behind a quota.
Comments on this entry are closed.