Earnest
ˈəːnɪst
1. Resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction

Until I looked up the meaning of the word earnest to put at the top of this post, I had always thought that it meant being keen and engaged, not being serious. Which means that the title might not entirely make sense, but I’m leaving it because now I’ve spent the time googling it and writing this paragraph (not to mention struggling with formatting because formatting)

But Sally, what are you wittering on about? Well, friend. I’m talking about the importance of being keen and excited and throwing your heart and soul into things, and where that gets you. The answer to which, I posit, is exactly nowhere.

Today has been spent doing two things. Spending some lovely time with Boyfriend, and trying in vain to write 15,000 more words of my thesis (thus far I’ve managed a bleak 300). And all the time I’ve been slightly yearning to be somewhere else. The problem is, I know exactly where I’ve wanted to be all day, and my reasons are just plain wrong. But I know that if I was at the other place, I’d be so busy I wouldn’t have time to worry or think about that. Because I’d be getting things done in earnest (now it makes sense, see).

So really, I attribute a lot of importance to being earnest, because it’s my way of avoiding thinking about things. Being busy makes me feel good, and it makes me feel meaningful, and it fills a hole in my life which is created whenever I have the time to stop and think. When I think, I invariably think about what I mean, and whether I matter, and if I’m important. But when I’m busy I don’t need to think about those things because I know the answer to them all. I do matter and I am important and I have meaning, and my meaning is to get the thing done.

This really all links back to my recent episodes of “Things that go around Sally’s Brain”, which is to say that I’m basically a workaholic because it fills a void which is created by a feeling of loneliness – which I avoid by being a workaholic. Which actually tends to mean I can’t spend time with friends because I’m too busy. Go figure.

Maybe I’ll rename my personal drama “Circular Thinking with Sally” because that’s all it really is.

Anyway, in other news I recently discovered that I’m vitamin D deficient, so I now have some supplements (affectionately known as “sunshine pills” because vitamin D comes from sunlight) which should make me more happy and energetic. And as a good friend pointed out, make this post just hilariously accurate.

Then we can go back to a blog where I basically shout at cars and politics…and online feminism.