Chop chop, tongue tongue

Originally posted to Xanga on December 20, 2008

That's where we're from, That's what we always wore. If I retell, that's where man fell, When he put foot on floor. (Burlap to Cashmere)

You know how elderly, sick, or disabled people have to say inside a lot, and how it sometimes results in self-pity and depression? Because they don't have work or something to occupy themselves with they feel useless, the realization of their laziness trapping them? I don't really feel that. I've done nothing beneficial since I walked out of Chemistry class on Thursday, but the guilt hasn't hit yet. I've been sitting at my computer watching movies online since Friday morning, and I don't feel guilty yet. My family is all sick and it's snowing and it's vacation, and so the house is in a perpetual stage of idleness.

But for how long? How long can I sit here doing nothing before I feel like a worthless, lazy slacker? Probably until a deadline comes. It's a question I've been thinking about for years, so I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with the cycle: laziness, guilt, restitution, satisfaction, laziness, et cetera. But revisiting the question made me think - when the deadlines are completely gone, when nothing is there to make me do anything, what will I do?

I'm not a doer, I told myself. But am I a thinker? I can't imagine so. I'm a learner. You give me a book, I'll read it. Want to teach me the FOIL method, fine, I'll learn it. I can memorize yoga poses. Don't make me interpret Sylvia Plath's poems - you teach me what they mean. You know the idiom "Those who can't do, teach." Those who don't want to do, learn. Application of knowledge bores me. I know a lot about yoga, but not once have I done it. The reason it takes me so long to get through my math textbook is because after I learn the concepts from the DVD I don't care enough to practice them. I'm not a doer, I'm a learner. I like things in the theoretical. In theory I love talking to strangers. In theory I'm all about community service. In theory I love this and that and the other. But in practice I'm not a doer.

That's why it's so easy for me to sit around doing nothing and not really care that I'm being lazy. Because it doesn't seem all that different from being a learner. The "doing" is already foreign to me. But there is still a small part of me that wants to do things, not busy work, but good things. I want to actually do the things that I love in theory. I want to actually get up and do yoga every morning, and have conversations with strangers, and volunteer weekley at Butler hospital. I want to be a teacher or a politician or a inspirational speaker or a homeless advocate. And I can't do those things if I continue to sit around watching movies while it snows outside. But how long? How long can I sit here doing nothing before I find the real motivation to do these things?

Forever?