Procrastination: Title Pending

I thought I had writer’s block. Turns out, I was scared to be alone with my thoughts.

Photo by Yuriy Vertikov on Unsplash

Thanks for being patient with me. I’m hyper-aware it has been a while. I really appreciate you for subscribing to this newsletter and supporting my writing. To those of you who have subscribed over the past few months because of some very generous recommendations. I hope you like what you read and choose to stay.

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This year was supposed to be very different. I set out to be way more active on Substack this year. Exciting series were in the works, and I set myself the goal of reaching the mythical 1,000 subscribers. Yet, here we are in June, and that seems elusive. Everything stalled except time. Truth is, I haven’t been able to write. I have tried to write. I have sat at my laptop with a Word Doc open, intending to write. But the cursor blinked at me.

I have been scared to be alone with my thoughts.

Being alone with your thoughts is the backbone of all writing. Without it, crafting a piece is like trying to play snooker with a rope. Every method I’ve learnt to smash a writer’s block barely grazed the surface. I couldn’t free write, I couldn’t do morning pages, I couldn’t bullet point, I couldn’t do anything. All because I couldn’t be brave enough to be alone with my thoughts.

The cursor continued to blink. Every day I opened my laptop, and it stood there squaring up at me. Every pulse dared me to tap out one thought. But when one popped up, my fingers found my phone instead. Cracking open a podcast, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels to drown it out. Wrapped in cosy justifications of “research”, but I was preventing my brain from processing.

We call this procrastination. According to Wikipedia, it is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing there could be negative consequences. What negative consequences was I subconsciously avoiding from writing?

Usually, I would use writing to explore this. But not being able to write created a whirlpool of anxiety.

I moved house a couple of months ago. To most people, moving is a big deal. For me? Meh. By nature of going into and being in the care system, I moved around a lot. Even to different countries. I never felt bothered by it. As I grew older, this immunity stayed. Between 2016 and 2021, I lived in Buxton, Tideswell (while studying in Liverpool), back to Buxton, and Oxford (travelling up to Buxton), then returned to Buxton (while continuing to work from Oxford). Somewhere in this madness, I found stability like the lonely middle piece at the bottom of a Jenga set. I was used to what I knew.

But this move. To a bigger, nicer place, with a hallway and a nice garden, on the other side of town, with nicer neighbours, should have been great. I have been shocked at how much this has affected me. This was one Jenga piece too many, and no matter how much better the new placement of this piece was, I had completely fallen apart.

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I am an addict. For many years now, I have kept myself in check. But I still keep conscious of the isolating, destructive behaviour lurking around the corner. Since the move, I’ve noticed I have lapsed into this behaviour again. Except this time, I have not been consuming an unhealthy amount of harmful substances; I have been consuming an unhealthy amount of content.

I would sneak off into other rooms for a cheeky doomscroll. As footsteps approached, I would pretend to work, throwing my phone to the other side of the room. On other occasions, I’d hide an AirPod in the opposite ear of someone in the same room, so I could sneakily down a podcast. While it looked like I was engaged in something else. In true addict form, I would tell myself I would actually start work in 5 minutes, but the problem I found was there is always another 5 minutes.

According to an article in Psychology Today, the opposite of addiction is connection. Therefore, addiction is a symptom of disconnection. Something in me had disconnected. Was it the house move? Had I somehow plugged into a place I had no idea about.

Amid the binge-watching, I saw an interview with Pete Docter, who directed Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out. While creating Inside Out, he ran into a problem. His solution? A solitary walk, without devices or headphones, so he could be vulnerable in his thoughts. It hit me.

I realised this is what I was avoiding. I was scared. It was never the work, the writing, the walking. It was the vulnerability. If I wanted to write again, I needed to be alone with my thoughts.

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I drove down to Oxford today. I told myself not to play anything. No podcasts. No video essays. No Music. No phone calls. I was only going to listen to my thoughts. A dull sensation ran up my arms as I fought the urge to pick up my phone and keep them on the steering wheel.

I let the thoughts bubble up and fill the car as the Sat Nav told me to follow the motorway for 40 miles.

I’m at the studio and open my laptop. I see the cursor, blinking at me.

Daring me. Again.

This is what I was able to type.

Maybe normal service will flow again. Maybe it won’t. Maybe now I can process what moving house meant. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will still reach for my phone too often. Maybe I will call this avoidance “research”. Today I was brave to be alone. Today I found a connection to my thoughts again. Today I could type again.

The cursor still blinks.

This time it’s not squaring up to me.

This time it’s waiting.

Thanks so much for being patient with me.

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