I wonder too if my acts of procrastination (currently weaving a hazel border for a flower bed) are a touch of demand avoidance - even thought the demand is only coming from myself.
Ooooh Modern Nature , will now have to veer myself back to Dyer who I am finding interesting . As an artist and writer I work better swopping between the two. My MA dissertation was inspired by Jarman and illness and an imaginary apothecary so have the book. My Dissertation was at its best while I was making 3d paper choughs for a pop up reliquary for a Physco geography Congress at CCCU . Home made soup is a good method of thinking too .
I managed to stay with Dyer till the end. I am pleased with myself about this because there were moments I just wanted to give up on him. perhaps some of his so called procrastination triggered my own. I am glad its over though. I felt it was probably the most self indulgent book i have ever read. I did laugh out loud a few times though. I am so pleased we are reading something completely different next.
Thank you. I read this section, fortuitously, last night while the latest Star Wars was unfurling in the next room (grateful for my wee conservatory which is once again inhabitable, an annual novelty!) I see Geoff developing a bit of self awareness in this section...at last! I say that and then realise he is in his 30s writing this and I am only beginning to know and accept myself in my 50s! I am very excited for Modern Nature, thank you. Also very excited for 'Write from the heart' with Woodbrooke college online starting next week (part of the self acceptance is that I don't write consistently, preferring a course or community to stimulate and motivate me)
I bought Modern Nature at the weekend - how wonderful! I am reading (alongside Out of Sheer Rage, The Universe in Verse and Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger - acts of reading procrastination?!!) The Garden Against Time and she quotes modern Nature so beautifully that I was on World of Books before I got out of bed! Serendipity!
I’m sure I’ve read some sober scientific paper describing the neurological mechanism behind the walking-the-lizard phenomenon, but I just call it “procrasti-cleaning”, and both my writing and the state of my kitchen are better for my giving in to it gracefully.
I got really, really stuck lately, trying to force myself along one, disciplined route. The thing that unstuck me? Allowing myself the freedom to follow my instincts and interests. I'm beginning to see procrastination as a message from my body that I need to change something. Once I make the change, it all starts flowing again.
Serendipity is at work! I’ve just started listening to Modern Nature on audio read melodiously by the (tragically) late Julian Sands, although I read the book itself a while ago. I just love it, everything about it: Jarman’s personality the necessary reminder of that awful time in the late 1980s/1990s when we were so terrified by the HIV ads, the beautiful sound of all the plant names and hope that a garden in a most inhospitable place can still thrive. Geoff Dyer made me laugh out loud and I now definitely consider procrastination in a different light, plus I learned a lot more about Lawrence from the book, but I’m especially forward to this.
I wonder too if my acts of procrastination (currently weaving a hazel border for a flower bed) are a touch of demand avoidance - even thought the demand is only coming from myself.
Ooooh Modern Nature , will now have to veer myself back to Dyer who I am finding interesting . As an artist and writer I work better swopping between the two. My MA dissertation was inspired by Jarman and illness and an imaginary apothecary so have the book. My Dissertation was at its best while I was making 3d paper choughs for a pop up reliquary for a Physco geography Congress at CCCU . Home made soup is a good method of thinking too .
I can't tell you how cheered I was by seeing a bearded dragon in a dragon wing harness, thank you for sending me just what I needed this evening!
Katherine, last evening The NY Times digital issue included an article on “25 Gardens You Must Visit…” and Prospect Cottage was number 11 on the list!
I managed to stay with Dyer till the end. I am pleased with myself about this because there were moments I just wanted to give up on him. perhaps some of his so called procrastination triggered my own. I am glad its over though. I felt it was probably the most self indulgent book i have ever read. I did laugh out loud a few times though. I am so pleased we are reading something completely different next.
Thank you. I read this section, fortuitously, last night while the latest Star Wars was unfurling in the next room (grateful for my wee conservatory which is once again inhabitable, an annual novelty!) I see Geoff developing a bit of self awareness in this section...at last! I say that and then realise he is in his 30s writing this and I am only beginning to know and accept myself in my 50s! I am very excited for Modern Nature, thank you. Also very excited for 'Write from the heart' with Woodbrooke college online starting next week (part of the self acceptance is that I don't write consistently, preferring a course or community to stimulate and motivate me)
I bought Modern Nature at the weekend - how wonderful! I am reading (alongside Out of Sheer Rage, The Universe in Verse and Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger - acts of reading procrastination?!!) The Garden Against Time and she quotes modern Nature so beautifully that I was on World of Books before I got out of bed! Serendipity!
I’m sure I’ve read some sober scientific paper describing the neurological mechanism behind the walking-the-lizard phenomenon, but I just call it “procrasti-cleaning”, and both my writing and the state of my kitchen are better for my giving in to it gracefully.
I got really, really stuck lately, trying to force myself along one, disciplined route. The thing that unstuck me? Allowing myself the freedom to follow my instincts and interests. I'm beginning to see procrastination as a message from my body that I need to change something. Once I make the change, it all starts flowing again.
I remember really enjoying Out of Sheer Rage a few years back. I'm sure I'll get round to his other books eventually.
Serendipity is at work! I’ve just started listening to Modern Nature on audio read melodiously by the (tragically) late Julian Sands, although I read the book itself a while ago. I just love it, everything about it: Jarman’s personality the necessary reminder of that awful time in the late 1980s/1990s when we were so terrified by the HIV ads, the beautiful sound of all the plant names and hope that a garden in a most inhospitable place can still thrive. Geoff Dyer made me laugh out loud and I now definitely consider procrastination in a different light, plus I learned a lot more about Lawrence from the book, but I’m especially forward to this.