The D Word

Last summer I was working on a Branching Out for a friend as part of my Christmas knitting. I used to find scarves fairly tedious, and the pattern just didn't thrill me while I was working on it (though the final scarf did look very pretty). So since this was a Christmas present and I was working on this in summer, I decided I would only force myself to knit ten rows, or one pattern repeat, everyday. This actually worked out and sometimes I would even get into the groove and crank out more repeats in a day. Because I worked on it so steadily, it was done faster than I could've imagined, and I ended up very pleased with the result.

And now I'm back in that place of needing discipline. Apollo's sock poi really are taking forever, and now that I have such an exciting project as my wings (and also the little rave top) to distract me, I was afraid that Apollo's poi would just sit gathering dust. Since I really would like to get all these projects done by the next party (in about 3 weeks) I think I'm going to need a little discipline to work through everything. Especially since I can get really bad crafty ADD.

Leo over at my favorite Zen Habits says discipline is a myth, that anything you might call discipline is actually motivation, and that if you think you want discipline, what you really want is better habits. It makes sense in a limited sort of way. I'd referenced this interview by Terrence Mckenna when I talked about novelty, and I reference it again because right near the top, Mckenna talks about how life is trying to find the balance between habit and novelty. Without going off on some really random quantum-philosophical diatribe, I will put forth my opinion is that discipline is actually the ability to pare down the habits in your life to the most essential - or even eliminate habit entirely and learn to interact with and reprogram the natural rhythms of life to meet survival needs - in order to leave maximum room for novelty. I'd like to think I'm a living example of that kind of lifestyle (which is definitely not for everyone, nor is it an easy transition if you do not have some benefactors to hold your ass up while you do all your rhythm reprogramming).

So the quest lies as such: I want to finish all the crochet if not the actual finishing (which will involve some hardware and possible fiddling around by both Apollo and I to get it right) of the sock poi, knit the little green top, and finish crocheting/assembling my wings by the next big party. I have plotted out checkpoints on each project so I can have some semblance of progress, and the basic plan is to keep rotating through the projects so I can mix the tedious with more fun stuff.