Well, I hope that you all don't think that I'm a tease; it's just that writing about procrastination is so hard! but I know that it has to be done. And, I promise you, it will be. After all, I did promise! didn't I? In the prelude, as you remember, we talked about time. This is OK, because procrastination is really about time. We didn't completely finish that, either, but I gave you the Nilknarf rules, and you can figger out the rest from that. If you can't, you need to go somewhere else and play... OK, let's get right down to it. We established that if time happened all at once, it would be bad. Very bad. And we can't tell for sure whether it's happened that way, or not. That's not under our control. How fast, or slow, time goes is not under our control, either, unless we have a spaceship that can reach or even (impossible! you say!) exceed the speed of light. I don't have one of these, and if you do, you probably wouldn't be reading this anyway. Or you would have already read it and went on to better things. So, what can we control? Why, we can control what we do and when we do it. This is a very important point! If you are taking notes, write this at the TOP OF THE PAGE! Underline it in RED! Let's say, just for fun, that you had no control over when you did things. As soon as you thought of something, you had to do it! Right Then! And everybody else was the same way. Sure, it will take a finite amount of time to get it done, whatever it is. And then what will happen? You'll think of something else to do! And then what? It'll happen again, and again, and again... then pretty soon, everything would be done! Then Nobody would have anything to do. People would get bored, and start doing things all over again, things that they had already done at least once. That would be really boring, too. Have I told you how much I hate to be bored? No? Well, let me tell you... no, that's a whole 'nother subject, besides, this isn't about me, it's about you. So, procrastination comes in and saves us. We don't really have to do anything right now! Isn't that a wonderful feeling, Freedom, the wind blowing in your hair, the sun going down over the mountains, a beautiful woman (or man, whatever) by your side, smiling up (or down) at you. Does it get any better that this? You have something to do... tomorrow. This is what life's all about, after all. The anticipation of the glory that is doing it tomorrow! Take away our tomorrows, and what is mankind, anyway. Even with them, what is mankind? Boy, that, once again, is a whole different subject. Maybe I'll take that up tomorrow... So how do we, as procrastinators, protect our images? You are aware, of course, that there are many people out there that say that we're "just" lazy. These people include most wives and husbands and all bosses. At this point, I'm going to make a rule. If you are JUST PLAIN LAZY stop reading right now. That's right, just click on outa here. There's a "BACK" button on your browser. Use it, or go to your bookmarks or favorites selections and pedal off somewhere that you can feel comfortable. I must warn you, If You Continue, You Will Feel Very Uncomfortable! So go, no hassle, no pain. 'Bye, now. OK, they're gone. There has to be an intellectual component to procrastination. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to look up the spelling in our dictionaries. We have to know that we're procrastinating, and why we're doing it. To save the world from itself, is why. This is a very noble and selfless cause, therefore we don't really want to associate with people who are just plain lazy. No, this is too classy a deal for that. I don't really have anything against lazy people, you understand. Some of my best friends are lazy. They have a place in this world, and we, as intellectual procrastinators, have to realize that, and not infringe on their territory. However, we do have to insure that they don't infringe on our territory, either. This is a very thorny problem, and it needs a first-class intellectual mind to deal with it. I'll work on it tomorrow. We also have to be a part of the community of intellectual procrastinators. If we are not united in our cause, we will be picked off one by one until there's no one left but me, and then I will be lonely. It's OK, I won't be bored, though. I have plenty of things I can put off. There are several procrastination groups on the net, but my dealings with them have made me believe that they're imposters, just really lazy people trying to suck us real intellectual procrastinators in. Trying to get in on the glory of having our intellectual names associated with their little phony groups, just because they're too lazy to become intellectual themselves. To join the most elite group of procrastinators ever assembled, The Great Intellectual Society of Procrastinators (American),also known as GISPA, fill out the form at the bottom of the page and send it to me. Someday I'll get an on-line form set up. Thanx for Being!