Deadline

Aug 21, 2010 | Politics, Yoga practices | 1 comment

Most times I love words (you might have guessed). I enjoy good writing in film or in a book. I adore going with a writer when they arabesque a metaphor and it flies like Baryshnikov or Nureyev and they take you along in their leap of imagination.
I don’t like words when they roll around in my head like the empty bottles on my car’s back floor, especially when I’m supposed to be sleeping.
I’m describing last night. My before-holidays to-do list ran in a continuous loop on my frontal brain screen until about 1:30 am. Then I woke early and the list started up again.
It’s all been written down on lists that I’m gradually ticking off, so I don’t know why it was to play out at night too.
Wednesday is our deadline for getting stuff on the lists done. Daniel is doing his own separate deadline for his part-time employer, which has sometimes felt like a further pressure on me. Wish I were a better yogini but I guess dealing with deadline pressures is a life-time learning.
I got to thinking about the word “deadline”. Maybe you don’t want to think about it too much. It doesn’t have a nice ring.
One theory is that it’s use derives from old U.S. military prisons where a “deadline” was drawn around a facility and any prisoner crossing that line was shot on the spot.
Certain work deadlines can feel as perilous the above description. But rarely does one die from not meeting one. Loss of sleep is certainly more common.
As the deadline for vote counting in the Australian federal election nears, I wonder which party will be dead in the water – hopefully the one lead by the guy who sports the Speedo-style cozzie.

1 Comment

  1. I empathize with pre-travel excitement/anxiety. In the meantime I wish you sweet dreams. If you’re having trouble sleeping, and are sitting at the keyboard, why not check out http://www.break.dom (Deadline).

    Reply

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