To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
 
For a rational person, I am curiously superstitious at times. I find it funny when I think about it but I can’t help myself. For example, I am superstitious about the space I work in. I start believing that my creativity or productivity must have something to do with the space rather than myself. It could be positive energy or vibe or inspiration or whatever one calls it. I am extremely resistant to changing my “lucky” space for this reason because I am afraid that I won’t be able to replicate the same quality of work elsewhere. It’s a bit like losing a muse that you think sits in that space and fills your brain with ideas ;)

The fact is that my current “space” has been very bad for my back. I sit in a very lazy reclining position on the couch or the sofa rather than on a chair/table. I keep my laptop on my lap and work on it in this lazy position. This was fine when I also juggled this space with other spaces in the pre-COVID world such as my workspace at the university but now that I am pretty much confined at home, sitting in this one space seems to be badly affecting my back.
I do have a proper study area in my room but I have never used it. I always preferred to sit on the sofa in the kitchen-cum-lounge which is a more expansive sort of area than my room and also has a larger view from the French window. My room feels a little stuffy and cramped compared to this. But more than anything else, what bothers me is the superstition that I won’t be able to produce the kind of work I have been producing in the past few months in a different space. It does seem silly to credit the work to the space especially when it’s anything but comfortable but it’s an idea that my brain can’t seem to let go of in spite of myself…
Well, good sense had to rule in the end. If I lose my back I guess I won’t be able to do any work or focus on any work anyway… so between potential bad work and no work I had to go with bad work. The funny thing is that I am finding the work area in my room pretty comfortable… in fact, I also seem to be pretty productive (will take some time to see about creativity). In my sofa position I was always trying to shift the laptop on my lap because it gave me leg cramps or shift my back position because I would keep slumping into the sofa… here I tend to focus more on the work rather than getting distracted by the discomfort, I feel.
Looks like my superstition was just that… a superstition… though I doubt I’m going to be able to break out of this sort of thinking anytime soon :)

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 5:41 am 0 comments
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