Welcome to Day 10 of a 31 day challenge to write 500 words or more.  For more on that click here:  goinswriter.com

 

What is it about distractions that are so . . .

I just found a cool site with blog themes.  notablethemes.com.  I get lost in places like that.  I’m like a kid at Toys R Us wandering the aisles dreaming of taking every single toy home with me . . . and forgetting that his parents said “STAY RIGHT HERE — DO NOT LEAVE THE BICYCLE SECTION.”

How did I even get to the Star Wars Aisle?

It feels like be beating a dead horse to talk about distractions.  There is more talk about it than ever before, if only because there is more talk about EVERYTHING than ever before.  In fairness though, the fact that there is more talk about everything increases the fodder for distraction.  It’s a vicious, ironic spiral.

Full disclosure . . . I am freakishly tempted right now to Google “distraction”.  Better yet, youtube it.  I bet there’s some good stuff out there about being distracted.  I could probably spend the better part of the morning learning all about it.

Know what else? I think I may be even more tempted to Google “beating a dead horse.”  I know better than to try youtubing that one because I am confident that somewhere out there some twisted soul has actually thought it a worthwhile use of their time to record themselves beating an actual dead horse.  I don’t want that in my brain.

I kind of get the saying.  The horse is dead, you’re not going to get it to move and it is wasted energy to keep trying but still . . . that is a horrible visual image.  I’m sure that it made more sense to people who counted on horses to get them from place to place but the fact that we still use those particular words among cultures who rarely even see a horse baffles me.  It baffles me even more that the saying would have such staying power among a culture which has grown so sensitive to animal rights.

Does PETA know about this?

Worse yet . . . do they know about the different ways to skin a cat?  That one is just sick.  I don’t get it AT ALL.  When was it ever ok to skin a cat?

You know what a weird word is?  “Baffle.”  I wonder where that comes from.  Just saying it out loud sounds funny . . . especially if you say it like ten times in a row.

Baffle. Baffle. Baffle. Baffle. Baffle.Baffle. Baffle. Baffle. Baffle. Baffle.

Note — I’m not counting those ten “Baffles” towards my 500 words today.

Something that is really boggling is to consider how much of a different person I would be if I lived in a different time.  Like back when they used to beat dead horses.  Would I be so likely to get distracted if I didn’t have access to all of the answers to all of my questions sitting right in front of me — literally in the exact same 13 inch rectangle that is the space where I am trying to get work done?

I’m sure (if I was living in a horse beating era) I would still be curious to know if other people get distracted, or what the most common forms of distraction are or ten ways I could stop myself from being distracted but knowing that I can actually walk down the path to discovering all of those things (and so much more) without even standing up . . . or turning my head . . . makes it all really hard to resist.

Yep . . . PETA knows.  Dangit.


And those are my 500 words.

 

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