It's Always More Complicated

The Isley Brothers, exhorting 'Take some time out for love!'

Well, on the one hand, this might be a valuable reminder to keep a viable work-life balance -

On the other hand, that 'old cross boss' might have a different viewpoint on it, particularly if one was just up and taking some time out for LOVE in the middle of the working day -

But on the prehensile tail, perchance one could make the business case that taking some time out for love would, in the long run, improve productivity?

One is almost inclined to Ask A Manager what her opinion on this advice might be.

Oh dear, French philosopher living right up to the stereotype:

"Hats off for this invented-but-more-real-than-real Kant, whose portrait, whether signed Botul, Pages or John Smith, seems to be in harmony with my idea of a Kant who was tormented by demons that were less theoretical than it seemed".

***

In less guffawy news, the claim that late C18th anatomists were on a serial killing spree seems to have already well jumped the tracks of 'an historian claims' to Troo Faxx. Sigh. Moan. Groan. No-one seems to be saying 'who is this "historian" and plz 2 b showin workinz'.

***

Also, hedjog does moans:

Over people who cite archival documents (including 'undated letter' without any mention even of the file it was in) within a huge collection by the overall collection reference (and I take a haddock to the journal editors and referees who didn't at any stage pick that up).

People who seem to think that having a modest expertise on one or two facets of Victorian life means they can ask me a massively detailed and complex question about some different facet of Victorian life ('Doo myyyy research for meeee, pleeeez').

People who are writing an article and want me to provide them with weird and quirky facts about the topic. Topic is much overdone, in my opinion: anyway, there are several published books on it, most of them leeching off serious scholarly study of the 1930s.

Groan, sigh, headbang.

***

In less moany news, in yoga yesterday my balance postures attained some moments of, well, actual balance. I was really surprised.

***

Grouchy hedjog seeks soothing strokes:

Thinking about balance in connection with mrissa's 'One Year Closer to Balance Day', and I've already indicated in the appropriate places what I'm doing today which could be considered to be about restoring, or at least improving, the balance in my own life here and now.

But thinking about balance makes me think about what is possible my Worst Thing in yoga, which is balance poses. (I have probably previously done the thing about my tree-pose being whipped about in a hurricane.) And it only quite recently occurred to me that possibly one issue there might be astigmatism, because of the whole 'choosing a point and focussing on it' (and as I don't wear glasses when doing yoga, there's no element of correction), and besides being extremely myopic, I also have some degree of astigmatism. (This also gives me some 'looking down from really quite minor heights' problems, which is I believe a Known Issue.)

Another thing that I've been thinking about it is whether I'm thinking too much of balance as being a static, rigid, Patience-on-a-monument state rather than something that is dynamic, a question of small shifts and accommodations and re-centering, that it's more about change and movement and keeping one's balance through that.

And whether there is ever actual balance rather than a constant swirl of stuff that may, if I'm lucky, average out to something like a balance.

The dancer is swayed to music, but maintains balance?

An interesting metaphor for all sorts of things.

I have posted before, yeah, verily, probably at tedious length, about my tendency to say 'yes' when people ask me to do something (give conference paper, write encyclopaedia article or chapter in a book, read someone's ms, etc etc), whether or not this is a sensible thing to do. But this isn't so much about that, and I am getting better at saying no (I think).

Up until I completed my thesis, I was writing fiction. I was producing quite a lot. I had an agent, though nothing was actually getting sold, in spite of some hints of interest from editors.

After I completed my thesis, and began turning it into a (commissioned) book, my fiction-productivity decreased. This was no doubt partly to do with the fact that I no longer had a designated study leave day each week for the academic stuff.

And then people started to ask me to give papers, write articles, do reviews. And I got persuaded into signing up for book 2. A lot of these things (including book 2) were not things I'd have spontaneously and out of my interest in the subject, or perception of new directions from the research I'd already done, chosen to do.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's probably a lot better to be challenged and pushed to do things that stretch one's boundaries than to sit mewed up in one's study endlessly preparing the definitive Key to All Mythologies.

But after a bit, I had quite a lot on my plate in the way of academic demands and writing fiction went more or less on hiatus. Partly of course this was to do with limited time and energy. But partly, I think, it was because, you know, people were asking me to do this stuff, there was a sense that it was wanted.

I'm not sure that this is entirely about 'I wanna audience!', because, frankly, some of the things I've had published have probably been read by 3 people max, since all this saying yes has meant I've appeared in a lot of fairly obscure edited collections of essays. But the editors at least wanted my contribution.

There have, it is true, been things that I have written for myself (like the biography), and also things that, although I was asked to do something by an external source, were in fact things I'd been thinking about doing, already had ideas about, etc.

I was wondering How Odd Is This and how other people perceive this business of the internal drive vs the external pressures/demands, or don't see it at all.

[GIP: I don't think Marie of Roumania has any relevance to this post, but I just made this one.]