Procrastination
Procrastination, as Webster 1913 correctly pointed out,
is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as;
"The action or habit of procrastinating, or putting off; delay, dilatoriness."
I am a procrastinator. You have to work pretty hard not to be. It is a victory of Freud's id over the super-ego, which naturally explains why it is so enjoyable. Unfortunately, the ego then has to try to justify your inaction. I find myself justifying it by thinking that this will be a terribly interesting node for everyone to read, possibly during their own fits of procrastination? For some reason the law of contract and my imminent examination on the topic don't seem to interest me greatly at the moment.
The word procrastination derives from the latin "Procrastinatus" or "Procrastinare" and can be broken down to "Pro" meaning "forward/in front/before" and "Crastinus" meaning "of tomorrow/the future".
The words first recorded usage is from 1548 in Edward
Hall's "Chronicle", also known as "The union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancestre and Yorke". The chronicals, quite apart from being an excellent eye-witness testimony to historians of the conflict between the Houses of Lancaster and York, were one of the chief sources to Shakespeare in his historical plays.
Ok, I'm deviating here, but perhaps this is a good
example of procrastination in effect. I have reached the stage where typing for the sake of typing is more attractive
to my currently unstimulated mind than the work I should be doing.
I'll just be quiet now...
and get some work done...
maybe.