June 10, 2009
push for ice
6/10/09
As recounted various times (like here and here), I am just finishing up a self-imposed writing sabbatical in a local hotel. While the hole-yourself-up-for-24-hours writing plan isn't recommended for everybody, I find the escapism of a closed window and a semi-sterile room to be inductive of huge swaths of work.
They say that there are two kinds of people in this world, and one of them roots for Dook. Wait, lemme start over. In the Attention Deficit Disorder world, they categorize people as leaning towards either a hunter or a farmer. Those with ADD are definitely hunters, needing every day to be utterly different with no fixed outcome. "Or no fixed income", the farmers would say, and they have a point.
I think if you classify yourself as a hunter, then a forced sabbatical makes sense: you've put yourself in an entirely new situation, which takes care of your wanderlust - but you've locked yourself in, which takes care of the work.
Some like to tend the garden daily; others want to do nothing for a week, then spend 36 hours tracking a bison. The hunter is celebrated, but is unreliable and ethically challenged. The farmer is safer and always has seeds, but has to put up with the fuckin' hunter. And which would you be?
don't see too many of these anymore
I'll be the first to fess up. I'm a farmer without a shadow of a doubt. I'm all for doing a little each time, and my old roomies could vouch as my cleaning and study habits are good indicators. I'm also a big fan of the happy medium. I don't particularly care for really big highs, b/c inevitably they lead to really low lows, and, for me, that would drive me batty. I'm a financial planner's dream come true b/c I'm obsessively worrying that I haven't put enough away for my kids education, my retirement, trips I want to take, and of course healthcare expenses. I'm probably one of few people under the age of 40 that have debated the merits of long-term care insurance versus a continuing care retirement community for myself (part of that is due to my job, I'll admit). I think it drives my husband nuts on most days since he's a hunter.
Farmer with occasional gusts of hunter.
Mine is the path of the Frosted Mini Wheat. I try real hard to be the best of both. This means a lot of spectacular failures and spoiled crops, but when I do it right...oh, Man!
The photo reminds me of a book I liked when I was a kid called "Motel of the Mysteries," about an archaelogist in the future excavating a mid-century American motel. The bathroom was interpreted as the inner sanctum of a religious structure and they thought the band on the toilet might have been worn by a high priest during ceremonies.
Absolute hunter. Sure not by choice; I've been trying to cultivate the Farmer side all my life. Been known to procrastinate about **(Insert ANY task Here)** and be fully aware of my procrastination, and then in a fury of inspiration and energy scrub floors and rip out flower beds, do ALL my work for the past month that's piled up and half of the following month's work in a grand stretch of time often at odd hours, touch up paint on a bit of trim and end up entirely repainting entryways at 1 AM, etc.
I never know quite When that fury will hit either, or towards what it will be directed. Oh how I try to be a Farmer, practice and toil and attempt -- but there's really nothing like running after the Bison and never quite know if you'll get trampled. You can't possibly explain the twisted logic of that rationale to a Farmer, but another Hunter knows just what you mean.
Hmm, I'm pretty sure I'm a hunter married to a farmer. But I also think we both have a smidgen of the opposite tendencies as well.
Yeah, what happened to those toilet sanitation sashes? They went out with real room keys and vibrating beds. Huh, I guess I'm not answering the question, but I liked the photo. Hope you don't eat anything bad this time!
I don't find that this dichotomy speaks to me all that much. I really abhor routine, and the fact that I'm beginning to have a detectable pattern in my daily activities (like when I eat lunch, or where I go out to dinner) is enough reason for me to change my behavior to avoid it. And I will intentionally pick vacation destinations, routes for my walk home, or ice cream flavors based solely on avoiding trying the same thing.
On the other hand, I am easily satisfied with many things. I'll stay in a job too long as long as it isn't hell on earth, just because it's fine and I don't want to bother finding a new one. The same with apartments. And I definitely prefer being in a long-term relationship than being unattached, though when I am single, I don't really have a 'type.'
I think that for me at least, this doesn't really describe what's going on in my head.
Hunter (& ADD) here, through and through. My battles with procrastination are famous and frequent.
Hmmm. I'm not really feelin' either category, but I am definitely afflicted with ADD (my son's evaluating psychologist tested me, too, and I scored high) and have the all-nighters before deadlines to prove it.
When I used to write long feature articles, I would distract myself with ANYTHING in my workplace (and with congenial, witty colleagues, plus the Bitnet precursor to instant-messaging, I had plenty to choose from) as deadlines approached. In the end, it was always me, at midnight, in my office in a spooky old Victorian building, with 1) pre-1984, several packs of cigarettes or 2) post-1984 the large jumbo bag of peanut M&Ms I could buy, shivering with effort as I squeezed the story out of my brain.
So, I totally applaud your quarantine solution. I think what might have worked for me was to have a laptop (which I've never owned) and an isolated carrel in the university library with no Internet access. Just me and a Mac and MS Word and my notes and interview transcripts. Annie Dillard wrote (maybe still does) in a spartan, tree-shaded cabin in the backyard of her house on the Cape. I can dig it.