no time for tea time

By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, May 28, 2002 11:49pm

One month into my temp job (and still going strong ... I guess), I've noticed that I don't have near enough time for everything.

No longer free and unemployed, I find all the projects and activities I want to take part in are still lying scattered around my bedroom floor along with various clothing items and random pieces of paper.

I wonder why I feel the need to constantly be doing something. Why do I feel that I'm a bad man if I haven't kept up on all the latest movies (popular and arty), music, and books, not to mention the general goings-on of life on this planet? I realize that doing all those things is nice, but when did it become necessary? Sure, I respect people who know a lot and can talk about many different subjects, but do I have to be just like them?

And that's just the things I want to consume in this world (other than a nice tall glass of chocolate milk). Never mind all the things I want to bring into this world - web pages, images, photos, writings, plays, movies, songs, concepts, all of it.

I try to convince myself I'll get around to doing it all by making lists of what I must do, but even that eventually gets to be too much. I'm sure that somewhere in my room is a sticky note with the words "try to consolidate all to-do lists into one list", among other tasks, written on it.

All of this is rather busy for a guy who greatly values the idea behind vacations - long vacations, at that. I firmly believe that rest is necessary, not just for the body, but the mind. And from experience I know that creativity is a lot easier when a body is well-rested, not trying to do everything at once.

And yet my resting is often rather half-hearted. Rather than sitting on my front porch, avowedly doing nothing, I might sit on my couch and watch some stupid TV show, later realizing how emotionally manipulated I feel for being made to care about a fictional group of people.

In the end, isn't everything we do meaningless at some level anyway? Why do I put such pressure on myself to do particular things? Why can't I just enjoy being, consuming or creating whatever I do? I guess the answer to that is both complex and simple - that's who I am, and I like what I like.

Ah, well. At least I can turn to my web page and vent, right?

Hmph. Half the reason I'm writing this is that I hate noticing that I haven't written anything (much less anything clever) in a long time. It's funny how free people like myself keep inventing taskmasters to keep us from relishing our freedom too much.

Piffle.