The Anarchist Brain

Writer’s Block…

I don’t actually have writer’s block, in the traditional sense of the word, I know precisely what I need to write, in fact if you asked me what I am writing about I could verbally deliver my entire piece word for word. The only problem is that when I sit down to write the damn beast I simply can’t type out the words, they get jumbled and angry and flee altogether, so that I find myself staring at a word document dominate by a whole lot of white space and a few angry distracted sentences that seem to be avoiding inter-sentence communication.

My opinion on the matter is simple… in two weeks I finish my degree and my brain has just decided that three years of mental torture is quite enough and it deserves a bit of a break. So I am feeding it with opera music, hip-hop, pop art, red shoes and alluring poetry, so that I can trick it into thinking again and then when it is quietly pondering the shiny-ness of a pair of shoes I can abruptly sit down in front of my laptop and open a word document and force it to produce a piece of academic work. Obviously the difficulty with this is that my brain has access to these sneaky thoughts, because part of it is producing them… so my plan is foiled every time!

So here I am blogging, while simultaneously distracting my brain with ‘Brainwashing’ by Bob Marley, and I figure I can start a normal blog, and perhaps some sort of thesis will seep out of my sleepy, disgruntled brain. This isn’t working either, I can tell because this blog hasn’t even touched on the politics of representations of Aboriginal women in Australian films… and there I go, I mentioned the thing, and my brain has abandoned its post and scampered off into Gotye’s ‘Puzzle with a Piece Missing’. Coincidence? I doubt it.

In the spirit of 'full disclosure' I'd also like to point out that my music player (which is currently set to shuffle), has subsequently played 'Brianstorm' by Arctic Monkeys, followed by 'The Drugs Don't Work' by Ben Harper... I'm feeling that my music player and my brain are in cahoots. Let me elaborate: I selected 'brainwashing' which was followed by 'Puzzle with a Piece Missing' indicating I am trying to study without the assistance of my brain, which was followed by the conspicuously mispelled ' Brianstorm' indicating my brain's resistance to actual 'brainstorming', followed by 'The Drugs Don't Work' which in my head suggests that all that caffeine has started to wear off! I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next song is called 'Paranoia' or 'Need Some Sleep' (both of which are in my music player library).

Just two weeks longer...