I’ve always imagined if I were to win the lottery – an aleatory event which unfortunately requires the prior purchase of a ticket – I would be a volunteer.
The deep dark oceans would see me saving the whales with Sea Shepherd or chopping crews would stand aside while authorities try to remove my considerable weight from where it would be chained to an enormous tree.
In practice though, I’m a volunteer of a different kind: A Voluntary Procrastinator.
Oh, it might be a new term – coined just seconds ago by yours truly – but someone has to possess the exact hubris to do the job and it might as well be me.
Three different “a word a day” emails, two with added interesting articles, demand my time. What would a day be without the synonym and antonym match-ups on www.thefreedictionary.com? Knowing about an obscure public holiday celebrated on this very day by some unknown culture, reading up on what happened on this day in history, expanding my horizon with knowledge of the latest in science and the odd unsolved mystery of no immediate importance … These tasks must be completed.
Then there’s Facebook. If you’ve ever been the administrator of a Facebook page you might know that entire days can go by in the loading of content, checking of new likes, inspecting the number of views and obsessing about nutty reviews.
The Internet has reinforced a parallel universe where many of us have very busy lives. Although I follow scarcely ten of my 800 Facebook “friends” I save links on topics ranging from psychology, to news, to the absurd.
There is also the obsessive tendency to take screenshots of worthwhile images on Instagram, editing pictures in various ways and constantly thinking of something profound to use as my WhatsApp profile pic and status.
Not that I need the Internet or technology for my imaginary universe. Give me a book, a scrap of paper and a pen … my effrontery to fantasise knows no bounds. Except, of course, for those instances where one is forced to perform a menial task of the kind which awakens a darker kind of madness. But let’s not go there.
Right about now is where I attempt my awakening back to the real world; knowing all the time still, I’m forever doomed to vacillate.