An unlikely encounter with an obvious lesson
The untitled goose gaem is good, and you should play it. Wholesome memes are scarce, and the goose’s intrusion upon pedestrian affairs across the web is a salve for our ground-down spirits. A stupid one-note meme, like all the best. I wanted in.
The depiction shown above of the untitled goose accosting a dog version of myself was a fusion of the following materials:
one of Apple’s iPads
one of their Pencils
and about 3 hours all-in from reference sourcing to publication.
A professional artist might have managed with less, but I made a passing request to such a person to try and nothing came of it (reasons unknown). Rather than let it lay fallow, I took it upon myself to be disrupted by the goose. Like everything, I wish I’d spent some more time both planning and executing it (better poses with contextual props), but my meager effort was handsomely rewarded with a bounty Likes and Retweets—the only true digital currency, accepted everywhere.
This drawing almost didn’t happen. I couldn’t muster the willpower to sit and hammer out the product despite it being at most a touch easier said than done. It was more than a straight trace job, but the style is simple and the scene was recycled from the gaem itself. All I had to do was smudge tool the nerd with the glasses out and draw Zaethro in his place. And so I wrote the task in my calendar; then I typed it in my digital to-do list; then I wrote it down in my physical to-do list for the week; then wrote it down in my physical to-do list for the next week. I stared at this line item in its various forms about thirty times, consistently passing over it to tackle for more pressing issues in my life like understanding the geopolicy of Nigeria (including but not limited to details such as where it is). All this task demanded of me was to dive into a different spot in a previously explored pool. What was the hang up here?
Annoying enough, I believe the same process that brought the possibility forward also prevented its execution: ideation. Envisioning the final product activated clusters of neurons in my brain, some of which are involved in other processes, such as generating unpleasant hypotheticals. Here are a few examples of the bad things my brain thought might happen if I proceeded with this task:
Someone in the fur community has already done this and I’ll get accused of stealing the idea.
Someone in the fur community will decide to do this after seeing that I’ve done it.
The artist I casually contacted will be hurt that I opted to do it myself.
No one will like it.
Too many people will like it, generating an instantaneous celebrity I’m not in the mood to handle.
I won’t be able to emulate the style and it’ll be a waste of time.
I’ll realize I was supposed to be doing something else.
A lot of these possibilities are almost objectively stupid. The summation of them barely adds up to a justification against pursuing a creative thing of a type I’ve enjoyed in the past, yet even swatting these nits away hogs oxygen and carbohydrates I need to exert to get started.
The hardest thing about decisions is that they occur in a moment. This is why you can improve your decision-making by spreading it out over time and committing in advance where you can, which I’ve tried to do. A lot. You might have been taken aback by my use of a calendar, a digital to-do list AND a physical one (in which case, welcome to the Machination Log, pleasure to have you). That’s not even the whole arsenal: I also have lists for tasks I want to defer, to chronically but not reliably revisit, and to explore when I have spare cycles. These are all decisions I try to take out my hands in the present so I can focus on acting.
You can’t divide and conquer everything, though. Even if you put yourself in a position where only one task is viable, Plan 0 is always an option. You can always opt out. You can rest; you can pace in paranoid circles; you can sit there with a pencil with your hand and draw fuck all for hours if you really put your mind to it. The bar can be on the floor, and if you don’t step over it you don’t clear it. I’ve admitted already that I’m not a master of clearing that bar but I do have a bit of deductive reasoning to contribute as insight here, based on my own experience (presumably yours too—this strikes me as one of those things everyone knows and forgets and needs to be constantly reminded):
Your brain prefers preservation to prosperity, and cannot be reasoned out of that stance.
Doing the right thing, even hedonistically, can be uncomfortable upfront. Don’t look down. Frankly, don’t look up too far either—that can get hairy as well. Just look forward and, if you can swing it, maybe bring someone along with you to keep the gears grinding. I know I don’t.
