Day before Presentation
Again its the same day, again those same thoughts, same feelings, same laziness, same eternal question “do I want to do this?”, “Am I doing what I really want to do ?”. I have my presentation for the B.Des project day after tomorrow, and I haven’t worked on it since 2 months. I was enjoying since the past 2 months when I really had to work, thinking I will do everything in the last 1 week, then 6 days, then 4 days , now 1 day… and I still have to start. Some of my batch mates have status messages like “phati padi hai”, and even after knowing the gravity of the situation, I don’t want to work on that. I just want to enjoy, play badminton or cricket or just sit along the sides of brahmaputra. I have read 3 or 4 blogs on how to get things done, GTD, or MIT’S(most important things) of your day. I get frustrated after sometime and I say to myself, “I just need to refresh my mood, then I will work”, due to which I have seen 3 movies in the day, “training day”, “accepted”, “knocked up”. Adding to the misery I went out to have food, and ate a lot, butter chicken, tandoori chicken….and now that is making me drowsy and the “devil” inside me questions “don’t I deserve a good night’s sleep, how this work is going to affect my life, will it affect me in some way, make me a better person”….answering that, the “moral” says “everybody will laugh at you, professors will ask questions, do it, work on it, you can get an F grade, common work….” but again…don’t I deserve to get rest….blah blah…
But there is a solution to this problem and everybody knows, that including me. Break your work into parts, do the smaller ones first, you get confidence after completing them, then go for the bigger ones. This way you can complete massive, piling work. But vague and futile questions, I say them “philosophical funde”, which are of no use pops up in between and ruin everything. I am fighting hard to overcome this bad habit since….since….since…my childhood, if i remember correctly. But then in those times, there were no philosophical funde, I simply did not want to do it. This “i do not want to do it”, have worn these philosophical clothes, recently when I started reading some books and attended some lectures on philosophy, sociology, existentialism, absurdism….etc. It is really cool to give the “moral” an explanation in these terms, because they seem something real, something of importance, but these important terms can’t provide me a day’s meal when I am on my own in this world. I can only think about them, when I have my parents money to spend and lot of free time to think. When I will have to fight for my square meals, I am sure I won’t think about them. These are expensive thoughts and a person who is busy with his assignments, deadlines, expectations of his parents for a new car, can’t afford that.
So here I am, writing all this, and feeling good I wrote my feelings away. This has rejuvenated me, and motivated me to my work. I think it would help me because now I am feeling good from inside, feeling to work on my presentation. I will write about the presentation in my next writing.
Lets see what happens….wish me luck
Diya said,
March 2, 2008 at 2:51 am
Such profound thoughts on a mere design presentation!!
The use of “existentialism” is interesting too.
Well written overall and hope tomorrw’s “gala event” provides you with enough substance to write on (you can trust DOD for that I guess)
Sarang said,
December 18, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I don’t know why I am writing this comment ages after the post itself, but you can think that just like great ancient works are still analysed today, your post also merits the same treatment.
I would just like to point out that the theories which you have mentioned – “Existentialism”, “Absurdism” etc, never instruct that we should give up work. They only say that all work is a means to removal of boredom which man would feel if not for it and that work other than that has no “purpose”. I am oversimplifying but its ok.
Point is that next time you get these feelings, don’t use existentialism as an argument.