Flagging

Can’t think. What to write? What to write? What to write? Um… ooh, I don’t know.

“Stop stressing. This weekly deadline thing you do, it’s only self imposed. You’re not failing anyone by flagging a little. You’re just having an ‘off week’… I suppose. This space only exists to keep your writing active…”

Yeah, I know that. That was my idea! And if I start flagging now, my writing doesn’t stay very active. Who’s to say a missed week here won’t have an impact later on. If I can’t keep this up now, that only makes it harder to get back into the swing of things next time. Also, ‘flagging’? Are you sure that’s what you mean?

“Erm… yes. Why, what’s wrong with that?”

It’s just…

“…yeah?”

Well, are you sure you don’t mean ‘lagging’? Or ‘slacking’? Those just seem like more appropriate words to use in this situation. I mean, is ‘flagging’ really the best word to use for when someone’s tired or uninspired?

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

Now, come on brain. Are you sure you didn’t actually mean ‘lagging’ or ‘slacking’, just mixed them up with a similar sounding word and used that just to seem a bit more knowledgable? Bear in mind, mind, you are… well… as you say, ‘flagging’, right now. You couldn’t even come up with a decent topic to pitch at the start of this.

“Oh, so you don’t even trust your own consciousness to produce the words you type that you have to question everything? Also, an argument about such a word is the perfect basis for one of these weekly rambles?”

You got anything better?

“…”

Thought so.

“Of course you thought so! I’m your brain, dipshit!”

Okay, okay, enough of you. Here: ‘flagging’; verb…

“Did you really just Google this?”

…marking (an item) for attention or treatment in a specified way.

“Fucking nerd. Okay, you wanna dance? Let’s dance. Ahem… ‘flagging’; adj. 1. Declining, weakening. 2. Languid, drooping.”

‘flagging’; noun, a pavement laid with flagstones.

“‘flagging’; adj. dwindling, weak, fatigued.”

Ah, I found more. You just used another adjectival definition.

“Well of course I did, it’s a bloody adjective! Yes, it also has other uses but I was simply proving that I had found the right word for the purpose. Don’t ever defy me. I’m your brain. I control you!”

Jesus, calm down! I believe you, okay. Just couldn’t help second-guessing. Like I found, there’s other meanings to it, of course I had doubts about using the correct word. Okay? Sorry.

“Yeah, you say you’re sorry but you always do this. You’re always second-guessing me and censoring me. Putting me down when I’m really the full functioning part of your consciousness that tells you what you really want to do, say and think, and yet you still doubt me. You still put a hand up to me, stop me in my tracks and end up considering things for far too long that you end up convincing yourself that my thoughts are wrong, invalid, not worthy of sharing. And then you wonder why you’re so mentally frustrated? You wonder why you don’t express yourself often enough or open up about what you’re really thinking or feeling? That’s you, that is. That’s you silencing me. That’s you doubting me and putting me down all the time. Let me ask you, is this really what you want out of life?”

…

“Well, is it? Because that’s what you do all the damn time, and as long as you keep doing it, you’ll stay this quiet, self-controlled, self-absorbed blank sheet of nobody. Is that really what you want? Or do you want to actually live a normal life without censoring yourself, without critiquing yourself and every little thing you say or do?”

…um…

“You know I’m right. For once, would you just acknowledge that? For once?”

…um…

“Oh just shut up and play some music.”

---

There’s something unbelievably funky about a bassline that sounds like it emanates from a half-stretched elastic band. This French collective – with a band name conjuring images of a stretch of motorway somewhere outside Hull – have slapped such a bassline over some electronic bleeps, vocal modulation and (for some reason) an animated GIF of a dog’s face, creating something you’d bop along to with the windows down, whilst you were stuck on a stretch of motorway somewhere outside Hull.

I’m running out of ways to say “I like this” in these weekly little snippets, so unless stated otherwise, from now on it’s safe to assume that I like whatever goes in the bottom quarter of these things. Now try not to get too distracted by the dog face.

M83 – Do It, Try It