On Hope, Denial and Procrastination in the Modern World

@250WL

There’s a course of action that follows naturally from an event, a default option that time will enact. Sever something vital and you’ll die, unless medical attention is administered. Leave a bill on the side and a late fee will be added, unless you remember to pay it before the deadline. But with more complicated topics, it often seems like there is no default action. This depends on that, which is influenced by the other. You can lose a soccer match or two and still make it to the quarter finals.

We need to win this match and the other team needs to lose by this many goals. The default is that if you don’t show up and really play, then you’re out. It’s the same default as day one, but it’s more obvious because it’s the last chance.

In that way, my definition of procrastination is: the unconscious mind’s way of advancing time to a point where the ‘correct’ option becomes the obvious choice; whereas hope is choices, possibilities, other outcomes; and denial is allowing oneself to hope for that other, when it doesn’t really exist.