How to procrastinate, as advised by an expert

AJ HARTWICK, Special to The Denisonian—

The quip “chin-up’’ is often told to those in need of cheerfulness. In particular, white dads prefer using this phrase instead of making their children therapy appointments. 

Being a first year student who’s in need of some cheering but is too lazy to walk to Whistler, I decided to take my father’s advice. However, chinning-up did little to remedy my angst, but rather forced me to confront the horrifying reality that the birds flying above campus make the Middle East look like a friendship circle.  

  Sitting on the top floor of Slayter feels like being an ancient Roman watching gladiators brawl from the seats of the colosseum. The sky above campus is never lacking winged menaces stalking and taunting each other. Perhaps the fact that I was raised by “chin-up” parents has something to do with this, but I feel extremely drawn to these conflicts. In fact instead of doing homework, I find making up backstories to the bird brawls to be a much more productive use of my time. 

   I’ve thought of several roots for the conflict, but the one I keep going back to is a dynastic struggle stemming from adultery which spans several generations and territories. This is the only premise under which I can make sense of every single bird within seven miles fighting each other at 7 am.

 This omission may reveal many things about myself, and I don’t think it takes a particularly keen perceptiveness to discern that chief among them is my particular expertise when it comes to matters concerning procrastination. Thus, considering how advanced my skill happens to be, I see it as my duty to share my gift with the world. You’re welcome!

First of all, if you want to come close to matching my gift, it’s important to let go of specificity. The best thing to do when procrastinating is simply anything besides what you are supposed to be doing. Let’s not pretend this is a complex science. 

Almost as important as my first tip is my second, which is that you need to be caffeinated in order to properly procrastinate. Procrastinating regularly gives you more freetime, and people with more freetime tend to be more philosophical than our more well-adjusted peers. If you, as a serial procrastinator, are profoundly uninteresting, that’s probably because you’re stupid. However, you are in luck because stupidity – like most ailments – has a cure, and that cure is caffeine. If you find yourself empty-minded, just drink an absurd amount of caffeine. Trust me, the thoughts will come. Plus, you can tell yourself that by drinking caffeine, you’re eventually going to be more productive. By the way, frantic compartmentalization and mental-gymnastics like that are also required if you want to take procrastination seriously.

Now, there are definitely other skills useful to serial procrastination, but I’m simply too lazy to tell you at the moment. This is a lot of information, but there is absolutely no need to let it make you nervous. Just remember that you have all the time in the world to procrastinate learning this crap! If you happen to already find yourself a master of one or several of these abilities, you should recognize that you, in your heart of hearts, are truly better than everyone else. Many people will try to tell you that this is not the case, but I guarantee you those people were not capable of explaining why the birds of Denison are fighting.