On Productivity

I wish I could be this unfettered while writing my dissertation.

One thing I can say, though, is that I think I've conquered my Facebook compulsion.  I used to let it distract me in a terrible way.  Like, if I started writing and I hit a thought block, instead of digging down a little deeper into my gray matter and pulling out a plug to reopen the thought flow, I would unhesistatingly skip over to Facebook.  Suddenly, my brother's Herculean workout sessions or retellings of adorable children's antics or academic outrage at the oppression-du-jour or Scandal previews became more important than the most important work I have staring me in the face with every breath I take.  Write.  Write.  Write.  Write.  I would especially get suckered into reading those "numbered" articles (you know the kind.  5 Things that Every...., 10 Tips for...., 17 Ideas to Make Your...., 22 Habits that Every....).  Particularly the kind that had to do with relationships and marriage and making it work and what the predictors of success are and how to know you're with the right one and yadda, yadda, yadda.

I deactivated it for a few weeks.  I'm technically back on, but now I've limited myself to one checking a day.  And no posting.  No posting unless I win the lottery or something.  Which I wouldn't because I'm not a gambling kinda gal.  No interaction of any sort until I make some significant strides toward finishing the seemingly unfinishable.

If you stare at the word 'write' too long, it starts to look strange.  It starts to look like it describes some  type of extraterrestrian bodily function rather than what it is.  And what it is is my ticket out of this extended adolescence.  It's the key to escape this transitory state.  It's the last step out of this chronically broke student state and into the productive, money-making citizen of society state.

Productive.  If you are this, you are the best possible you you could ever be, and if you're not this, you're the worst possible you you could ever be.  In our society, productivity is doing.  Productivity is producing.  Productivity is working.  Productivity is progressing.  Productivity is validation for existing.  And if you aren't doing, producing, working or progressing, you are taking up unearned space.  You are breathing in air of which productive people have priority to breathe.  I don't really believe that, but that's how I feel as an oft-unproducing person.  If you aren't productive, you are a sad, lazy sack of bones.

The fear of existing as a sad, lazy sack of bones prompts me to do something.  Eke out a few words.  Read a few post-colonial theory-riddled paragraphs.  But then the slow going prompts me to have some pretty interesting conversations with myself:

Me: Hey, self, wassup?

Myself: Yo.

Me: So, how's that writing thing going?

Myself: (gives Me major side eye) Really?

Me: (snickering) I know, I know.  Makes you want to put it on the "Do not ask" list along with "Where are you going on your honeymoon?" right?  Heh, heh.

Myself: Um, can I help you with something?  You're distracting me from writing.

Me: C'mon.  You call that "writing"?  Do you really want to be doing this from here on out?  Writing about the hegemony of the patriarchal, racist, sexist nation?  Talking about unsettling dominant ideologies and resisting oppression?  Girl, stop.

Myself: Um, do you have a problem with what I've chosen to write about? This is my topic.  No one's forcing me to write about this.  And stop trying to make it sound like overblown academic claptrap.  You're so annoying.  I know that I have a very relevant, interesting project, and when I'm finished, it's going to be something I'm proud of.

Me: (sighs)  Please.  We all know what you really want to do.

Myself: Okay, know-it-all.  What do I really want to do?

Me: (rolls eyes)  Don't act like you don't know.  You know good and well you wanna be knocked up and sedentary somewhere with a big fat jar of Nutella at your disposal and a big fat spoon with which to shove it into your mouth.  You know you wanna be employing whatever vegetable grater you managed to snag from your little fantasy Williams-Sonoma registry grating up some zucchini to bake loaf after loaf of zucchini bread.  You want to join a knitting circle so you can finally learn to knit and decide that your first project will be some ill-made booties for the baby.  You want to --

Myself: Shut. Up.  You are the worst, you know that?  You are like, the incarnation of the phrase "You are your own worst enemy."  Geez.  So what if I'd like to do some version of those things you so snidely characterized my wanting to do?  Wanting to learn to knit or have a baby one day does not preclude my finishing a dissertation.  Good Lord.  Working in academia as well as having a family and baking zucchini bread and learning to knit are not mutually exclusive.  Sit yo' ol' limited mindset, negative, snide, sarcastic, jaded behind down somewhere.  Here you are talking all this smack about what I "really want to do" when you're actually preventing me from getting into the position of being able to do anything I actually "really want to do" because I'm sitting here listening to you when I should be writing.  Finishing my dissertation and graduating are also things I "really want to do."  So, please.  You need to go somewhere with all that.

Me: (trying to act unfazed) Yeah, okay.

So...productivity.  Yeah.  It eludes me at times.  And it makes me question my goals, motivations and desires.  But here we are.  I'd venture to say that "productive" is relative.  If productivity were measured by sheer words which translate into sheer page numbers...I'm not the most productive gal on the block.  But if productivity were judged by the quality of what I have produced thus far...maybe I'd be a little higher up on the productivity totem pole.  At least according to my adviser.  My goal is to have a complete chapter submitted before I leave for Christmas break.  I'm already halfway there. ¡Sí, se puede!