What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies
Before the Internet came along (I sound like a dinosaur writing this), I could lose myself in a book for hours, just voraciously reading everything that came along. I remember that as an inquisitive 10 year old, I got myself extremely interested in botany.
I made several trips to the Tampines Regional Library, and just kept borrowing every single book they had on plants. I became a little professor on leaves, trees and everything green. There was a point when I could walk on the road and name you about half of the trees and shrubs I saw. The angsana tree, the flame of the forest, the champagne bottle palm, the rain tree, just to name a few of the more common trees that dot our streets.
Then I discovered Command and Conquer: Red Alert and any hope of me ever being a botanist was destroyed.
Progressing in that vein into the adult I am today, I realise I have a terribly short attention span. I can't watch a Youtube video that lasts more than 5 minutes before I start to load other videos to watch. I can't read an article that requires me to scroll down more than twice.
Even when I'm watching dramas, I need to do something every now and then to keep myself interested. I will pause the video every few minutes, get a drink, download an mp3, switch on the TV, then continue watching my show, switching to my TV once in awhile when the show on my laptop gets boring.
Can you imagine what it's like with work? Here's how I typically work.
I type one line of my assignment. Time for munch. Then I find a book I've been wanting to read, and I read 10 pages before I eye my tennis racket, and start swishing it around like Roger Federer minus the class, or Serena Williams minus the muscles.
After I'm done mucking around with my racket, I pick up my guitar and start strumming a random song. Then I realise I've got a good riff going and I head to my piano and start pressing out random notes. After terrorising the neighbours with my terrible piano playing, I pick up the newspaper and read the comics. I'm a terrible choice to be a journalist really, because I still love pictures more than words.
Then someone calls me and says "Hey let's go watch HBP. It has Emma Watson." And I go like "Okay you pedobear" and I head out of the house. I know she's 19 now but this guy has been telling me let's go watch Harry Potter because it has Emma Watson since like the 2nd film or something. I know, too much information.
A few hours later, the realisation hits me. "Oh shit. My assignment."