Part VI: Fear and Procrastination

If at first you don’t succeed, maybe you were afraid to try. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Procrastination “You’re procrastinating,” I said to myself. “I know,” I answered. A few weeks later, I sat down and continued writing. “You’re still procrastinating,” I said to myself. “I know,” I answered. “I’ve got to do something about that.” I got up and watched the Pats get spanked. A month later, I sat down again and continued. “I really ought to do something about this,” I said to myself, before surfing the net for a few hours. Three days later, I continued. “You’re afraid to finish, aren’t you?” I asked myself. “I don’t feel afraid,” I answered. “Behind procrastination is fear, Michael” Mom said. “Even if you don’t feel the fear, it’s there. All the books you’ve told me about say that.” “Nonsense,” I said, stupidly. “I’m not afraid.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies The Boy On The Diving Board I’m at Casino pool in Oceanside, New York, one of the places that Mom used to take us kids to swim in the summer. ‘Us kids’ meant my brother, Mark, my sister, then called Bobbye, now Zorina, our cousin. Bruce—during the times he lived with us—and as many neighbor kids as she could fit in whatever car Mom drove at the time. When she had a station wagon she could get about a dozen kids in the car—there were no seat belt laws in those days. When she had some­ thing smaller she still managed six or eight. I’m climbing the ladder to the high board. Casino has two diving boards: a three foot low board and a three thousand foot high board. People say it’s nine or ten feet, but I know better. Mom was a competitive diver in high school, so committed to excellence that she’d broken her arm trying to keep her dive close to the board. She’d taught us how to dive off the edge of the pool, and helped us with the low board. I’m not diving, I’m jumping, so right now I’m on my own. Now I’m on the railed platform at the top of the climb. The pool is ten thousand feet below. My friends have climbed up and jumped or cannonballed off several times. This is my first at­ tempt. I wave people past me and watch them jump and dive while I recover from the climb, which is now twenty thousand feet. What’s so hard? I think. All I have to do is walk out to the end of the board, then take one more step. That’s it. Just one step. I wave more people past. I give myself pep talks. And finally I’m ready. I walk out on the board. It’s shaking beneath me. I walk slowly. My friends below are shout­ ing. I walk near the end. I look over. It’s a long way down, fifty thousand feet and increasing by the second. Just one step, I tell myself. All I have to do is step. I tell my legs to step. My legs tell me to go fuck myself. Or they would have if they were old enough to know that kind of language. They’re not, so they simply refuse. Same thing. I stand there frozen. Time stops. I don’t jump. I crouch to keep myself stable and edge back to the safety of the platform. I wave people past. They jump and dive off. I try to try again, but now my legs refuse to move in any direction but away and down. I get on the ladder and climb eighty thousand feet down. Hours later, burning with shame, I reach the ground. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies The Wheel Of Terror I’m not a coward, I thought. That’s the Third Classic Blunder. I know that now. I was afraid. That’s not the same. And I’m not a failure. “You’re right,” said the metanovel. “But you’re confusing the readers. You haven’t written about the Third Classic Blunder yet. Or rather you have written but that was in an earlier draft and you won’t insert that page until later in this one. This is page 95. That’s on page 101. “Should I reorganize the book?” I asked the metanovel. “Yes,” said my inner critic. “Reorganize it by removing all the words.” “No,” said the metanovel. “Intelligent readers will figure it out. And reorganizing will dis­ tract you from finishing me. I want to be finished!” “Alright I said. “I’ll continue thinking.” I’m not a coward and I’m not a failure, I thought. I’m a man who was once a boy who once climbed to a ten foot board and then climbed down, afraid. “Changes nothing,” said my inner critic. “You’re a coward and a failure. Always were. Al­ ways will be. You may have succeeded at a thousand things, but for every thing you’ve done successfully there are thousands that you’ve failed to do. Majority rules. You’re a failure. And a coward.” I’m not a coward and I’m not a failure, I thought again. I’m a man who was once a boy who told himself he was a coward and failure. That doesn’t make me a coward. Or a failure. “Cowardice makes you a coward,” said my inner critic. “Failing makes you a failure. You behaved with cowardice. That makes you a coward. The fact that it was sixty years ago doesn’t change anything. Failures, like diamonds, are forever. You failed to do what you decided to do. Because you were a coward. “And remember the Ferris Wheel.” I remember. I’m with my brother, Mark. We’re at a carnival with Dad. We wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel, it looked like such fun! The seats were in enclosed cars girded and steel meshed. Double safety. If you did the impossible and fell out of your seat you’d hit the walls of the car and get bruised instead of plummeting to the ground and splattering. And if you want an extra thrill, each car has a lever that locks it to the wheel. Pull the lever and instead of staying parallel to the ground your car turns as the Ferris Wheel turns. You could go upside down, or release it and spin it back to horizontal. Extra thrills if you wanted them! Ex­ tra safety if you didn’t. Dad gets us tickets. We’re next in line. An empty car stops. The passengers from the last ride get out and Mark and I get in. The operator straps us into our seats. He closes the door and fastens it. We’re safe and we’re ready! The Ferris Wheel turns so the next car is at the bottom. And the next. The operator unloads people who don’t want another ride and loads new passen­ gers. The wheel starts and stops. Our car rocks. Each time we’re higher. And higher. And higher. Now we’re nearly at the top. I’m screaming. I’ve been screaming for a while. I’m terrified. “Let me out!” I’m screaming. “Help!” I’m screaming. I don’t know if Mark is screaming. I think Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies he is. I’m screaming too much to notice. I’m blind with fear. The Ferris Wheel starts and turns a half turn. We’re at the bottom. I’m still screaming. The operator lets us out. “Never had to do that before,” he says to my Dad. “Coward!” Says my inner critic. “Failure!” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Misery “I hate myself!” I screamed into my pillow that night “I wish I was dead!” “It’s ‘I wish I were dead,’” said my inner critic, “not ‘I wish I was dead.’ You use the sub­ junctive mood when expressing a condition that is doubtful or not factual, you moron.” “I’m having a flashback,” I said. “I’m ten or twelve when this is happening,” I answered. “I hadn’t heard of the subjunctive mood. And I was feeling suicidal. You can’t expect perfect gram­ mar from a suicidal ten year old.” “Always some kind of an excuse,” said my inner critic. “Why were you suicidal?” Asked the metanovel. I thought for a while. I had a clear memory of screaming that I hated myself. I could remem­ ber how awful I felt. I could see myself, hands wrapped around my own throat, trying to choke myself to death. But I couldn’t remember why. “Are you an idiot?” Said my inner critic. “How can you choke yourself to death? As soon as you pass out, you let go. Then you’re breathing again.” It was stupid. I realized it. Even then I had realized it. I saw myself going to the closet in the room where Mark and I had slept while we were growing up. I saw myself pulling a tie from the rack behind the closet door, looping it around my neck and pulling it tight. It cut the blood sup­ ply to my brain faster than it cut my air. Spots started dancing in front of my eyes. The world started to go dark. I fell to my knees. The tie loosened. The spots stopped dancing. “You didn’t knot it!” Said my inner critic. “You didn’t tie a knot!” “I didn’t,” I answered. “You are an idiot,” said my inner critic. “One good stout knot. One you couldn’t easily undo. Can’t you do any fucking thing right?” “Why were you suicidal?” Asked the metanovel again. “I don’t remember,” I said. “I just don’t remember.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Chronic Metastupidity “I’m procrastinating again” I said to myself, a few days later. I’d added three chapters about fear and misery and I wasn’t any closer to finishing. In fact I was further than ever. Now I had three more chapters to edit in each draft and six new transitions to write so the new chapters would fit into the flow of the story. I was sabotaging myself, and doing a great job. “I don’t know how all the pieces go together,” I complained. “And if they don’t fit together then the metanovel will be stupid, and I don’t want it to be stupid.” “It’s stupid no matter what,” said my inner critic. “Just finish me,” said the metanovel, “For you it’s a matter of writing. For me it’s a matter of existence. If I have to be stupid in order to exist, I’m willing to be stupid.” “That’s a good attitude, I suppose,” I said. “It’s an attitude you need to adopt,” said the metanovel. “Being stupid isn’t the worst thing in the world. You could be dead. That’s worse.” Sometimes I that felt being stupid was worse than being dead, but I knew it wasn’t. Stupid was for a while. It went away. Dead was forever. It never left. “I know,” I said. But once again, the author only imagined that he knew. “No, really,” I said. “I understand.” But the author was too stupid to understand. “I’m not stupid,” I said. People can be smart about some things and stupid about others. When they’re stupid they can be simply stupid, or they can be metastupid. Simply stupid people accept the possibility that they are stupid. They compensate by avoiding situations where their stupidity hurts them. They find people who they think are smart and follow their advice. Unfortunately, the Law of Relative Stupidity says that you’re always stupider than you think you are. Simply stupid people break many laws, but they always obey that one. They are always stupider than they think, so the smart people that they stupidly choose are stupid, too. And so is their stupid advice. People who are metastupid are worse. The metastupid don’t know they are stupid. The mildly metastupid merely think that they aren’t stupid while the severely and chronically metastupid think they are smart. Some are so certain that they are smart that they become dan­ gerous. The worst ones go into politics, assert their solutions with the confidence that comes only with epic stupidity. People who are simply stupid vote for them. The author was metastupid. Not metastupid enough to run for office. Not metastupid enough to not recognize his prior stupidities. And not metastupid enough that he hadn’t learned the most important lesson one can learn about stupidity. But he was metastupid enough to consistently forget it. He sometimes remembered it when he was giving advice—which was paradoxically often quite good—to his daughters, who were usually smart enough to appear to listen and seem to pay attention. And he remembered it when Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies the magnitude of a particular stupidity so exceeded the magnitude of his metastupidity that he could no longer avoid acknowledging that particular instance of stupidity. Acknowledging his own stupidity was acutely painful. He avoided it whenever possible. “What’s the most important lesson?” Asked the metanovel. “I forget,” said the author. That was an incredibly stupid statement. But of course the author was too stupid to realize it. Fortunately it was so stupid that he’d realize its stupidity later. It would be painful. But it would be good for him. And you. According to the Wikipedia, Fredrick Schiller said, Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. That means, also according to the Wikipedia, “Against stupidity, the Gods them­ selves, contend in vain.” Schiller was mostly right. Most Gods contend in vain against stupidity. But this metanovel’s God was like the author’s Mom. She got shit done. She’d help the author, despite his stupidity. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies