Backlog

Currently there are 33 unpublished posts saved as drafts in my blog. Most of them will eventually be deleted. Failed stories, posts where the argument was lost, posts that I couldn't be arsed to work on more. They are mostly a reminder of my incapability to sit down and research before I work. I admit it, I write on impulse, when I need to write. Occasionally I do research (I try not to quote when I am uninformed) but sometimes I am lazy.

There are two drafts that particularly annoy me each time I see them but I can't bring myself to delete. One of them is (actually, two, I started twice) is about the Nobel prize winning work on vesicle traffic of Rothman, Scheckman and Südhof; the other about the evolution of horses.

The incompleteness of each of these entries bothers me for different reasons: in the case of the vesicle trafficking is for my lack of ability to write about a topic in biology that I am truly not interested in (even though I do know a little bit about it, including quite some knowledge I have somehow collected on membrane fusing proteins and hole punching proteins); in the case of horse evolution it is my incapability of making interesting a topic that I personally find fascinating. Both of them failures on my part, failures that reflect my tendency to procrastination and impulsiveness. Even right now, I am writing this post to avoid writing my final year project report, the first draft of which is due in tomorrow. I am a terrible human being. I will probably stay up all night working. I might show up in McDonald's in a couple of hours to pick up some diet coke, or directly go to sleep.

What is this incapability to finish what I begin? I have concluded that it is quite simple: most humans are failures. Not complete failures of course, but mostly failures. We console ourselves with the fact that we are doing a little bit better than others, but very few of us are truly extraordinary. In fact, extraordinary humans (the truly good scientists, the writers, the artists, the intelligent politicians, the doctors, or the people who make the world a little better) sometimes pretend to be normal! You read interviews with them and they pretend like they have defects. But I'm sure they don't. They're good. They're better than any of us. They just don't want to show it. That's one side of it.

The other side is ours, the side of the lesser people. I cannot remember when I first read that Condolezza Rice slept five hours a day. But since then there are two different ideas that go through my mind every time I think of that. The first one is that she must be lying. It is impossible. I can't live without less than 8 or 9 hours, it is impossible that she can be a world class politician, in incredible shape and also a concert level pianist on just 5 hours. It cannot be true. Maybe at times in her life she has lived like that but it can't be her routine. The second one is, I suspect, even worse: it gives me an excuse. Well, of course she's that good! She's got an extra three or four hours on me. Of course with three or four more hours I could do better.

No, the fact is that I waste my time. I admit it. I have watched more TV than I care to admit, reread more books than I should have, enjoyed many bottles of wine in the company of friends. The fact is, I don't work harder because I don't want to. I don't like it. I am lazy. And I'm not doing all that badly, which only leads me to suspect that most people really don't work that hard. Or once again, maybe I'm just consoling myself.

Except for one thing: I can write. On here, and to the people who read me, it probably sounds pretentious. "She's not that good a writer". But I am. I swear. My short stories are mostly written in Spanish, but I was reading one collection the other day and I was impressed. The girl who wrote them (me between the ages of 10 and 17) has talent. She can fucking write. She's a bit young, of course, the stories are, not infantile, but not exactly mature, but they're good. Some of them are even excellent. And yes, I am giving myself praise. But not myself from now. I have said it, now I can hardly work on a short post for my blog. But that girl would work for hours and days and weeks on those stories. She had help, let me tell you, she did, but those stories are hers. So yes, sometimes, when I think of how great everyone else is, and how I can't finish anything in time, I go back to my stories, or I write one. It's what I know how to do. And the funniest thing is that if anyone asked me, I could not say it was effortless, or that I am gifted or anything like that. All I can say is, writing a story takes luck, hard work, and very good critics. And more work. And hours, and days. Coming back to it. Being harsh on yourself. Deleting that sentence that seems so perfect but just isn't part of the story. Yes, when I think of writing suddenly I believe all of those people who claim they are normal. But only then.