Indecision

Once again, I'm embarking on this entry with no idea where it's going and with only the flimsiest shred of faith that if I just keep wittering on I'll eventually think of something to say. I'm beginning to see a kind of cycle in these posts, whereby a tawdry scrap of dredged-up fiction is followed by an existential crisis which in turn...

No, wait, that's not happening this time. Where's my existential crisis? I'm not having one. Curse!

Perhaps I should have an existential crisis about the fact that I'm not having an existential crisis?

Hmmm.

Perhaps not.

The kind of crisis I'm really having -- and as crises go it's pretty feeble, frankly, I mean it's not exactly up there with, let's say, the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Suez Crisis or (in a rather different vein) the Crisis on Infinite Earths -- is a crisis of indecision.

I've never been the world's most decisive person. I'm not completely incapable of making decisions -- how many millions of minuscule decisions go into the typing of every one of these sentences? -- but given the opportunity to dither, well, you know, I'll certainly think about it. I'll contemplate dithering, give it proper consideration, maybe procrastinate a bit first.

What shall we have for dinner tonight?

Well, you know, um, er, there are pros and cons, you know, maybe, we could, you know, but then again, you know, you know, you know, er, you know.

Just eat the fucking sandwich!

And many of my friends are the same. Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to do, well, anything, with a bunch of people like that?

What do you think?

I don't know, you decide.

Thinking about it, that's probably why so much of what passes for my social life is focussed around events. For example, next week I'm going to two different performances, on two different nights, at two different venues, by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's sublime dance company Rosas. And Anne Teresa herself will be dancing! Joy! The beauty of these things is that they are on at a set place at a set time. There's no scope for arsing around: either you're there then, or you aren't. Problem solved!

(And these two won't even have an interval, so we're spared that agony of indecision too: Do I want a drink? A glass of wine? A fizzy water? Three bottles of neat gin taken intravenously? An ice cream? Some japanese rice crackers? Perhaps I'll just sit here and wait for the second act to start.)

There are a number of things I am currently sidling up to with typically paralytic indecision. One is, obviously, this entry, but I'm here now so I might as well go on.
Posted by matt at October 2, 2003 09:26 PM