Maybe some of you will recognize the following scenario. I was ill a few days ago with a bad cold and forced to take a few days off from the lab. As I lay in bed, too drained to do anything but doze, I found myself strangely elated. How, I wondered, could such a miserable condition be in any way cheering? And no, since you ask, it wasn’t the antihistamines. It was the realization that I was in fact too ill to do anything. Even if I did feel physically up to sitting at my computer, I did not have the mental wherewithal to exert myself intellectually. In short, I was being forced to relax and do nothing.
Non-negotiable oblivion
Had I really reached the state where being ill was only thing that could excuse me from my (entirely self-imposed) obligations and ambitions?
Now I know I’ve made quite a fuss about how it’s personally important for me not to spend too much time in the lab. But the truth is that I work very hard outside of the lab on personal projects. In addition to a variety of freelance activities, including writing, editing and consulting, I am trying to get several novels published. And of course, I edit LabLit, where we try to publish at least two new pieces a week – a goal that requires a lot of attending events, commissioning and chasing as well as editing and production.
This looming docket of duties, which are more of less omnipresent, makes it very difficult to relax. Whenever I am not working on something, I am fretting because I feel I ought to be. This past Sunday was case in point. It was a glorious autumn day: bright sunlight, spectacular clouds, a fresh wind, the last of the summer roses shedding petals onto the grass, golden leaves raining down in the woods around my house. When I rose at half eight and put on the coffee, I had the entire Sunday ahead of me. Unusually for me, my extracurricular workload was more or less under control and ticking over – I could easily have kicked back.
But it’s not so easy. A beautiful weekend day is not quite as good an excuse as a rhinovirus, is it? So out came the laptop, the only thing that can smooth away the guilt.
I rather think some reprogramming might be in order. Can anyone think of a non-infectious way to get me into that chaise longue next weekend?
Gosh. I know what you mean but it’s hard to stop doing something you love. ;) But I know I have to cut back too. My five-year-old said to me this past weekend, “You always have work to do.” :(
At the very least, did you compromise, and use the laptop in the garden?
I can’t think of anything more tragic than being confronted by a sad-eyed child accusing one of workaholicism. As I don’t have one of my own, can I borrow yours, Hsien-Hsien?
And yes indeed, Scott, it was garden all the way. I’ve worked out how to make my cursor the size of a small dinner plate so it shows up in glaring sunlight. Now just have to work out how to get the suntan lotion out of the cracks in my keyboard!
I was going to nag you for not self promoting enough but given what you’ve written, I don’t want you to feel any more guilt than you do already!
“I’m just a girl who can’t say no.”
Name that musical!
Yes, I’ll be leading a Cafe Scientifique about science in literature next Tuesday. (You bringing the fairy cakes?) I might post a blog about it later this week…in between bites of dinner!
Oklahoma.
A hard-working journalist I know (I won’t mention names) was once asked by her small child -“Mummy, do you love your magazine more than me?” Devastating.
Good, a true Renaissance Man should be au fait with Rodgers and Hammerstein!
Gosh, bit of a Rachel Whiteread post ;-)
Speaking as a 150 year old, I would advise using up all your energy now while you have got it, to do all the things you are doing. There are plenty of autumn years in which all you will have the energy to do is to sit in the chaise longue. Burn up your energy while you have it.
Thanks, Maxine, it sounds like wise advice (from someone nowhere near their autumn, I might add). In the meantime, I’m busy burning my energy working out what possible relationship there could be between my post and Whiteread.
Big pile o’ white boxes? Nope.
Weird Victorian cast in Tower Hamlets? Nope.
Turner-prize-winning bed graphic? Nope (far too clean a bed).