Misfortunate Life
Alexandria & Paola Pivi’s Red Feather Bear at the National Gallery Melbourne

Today has been one of those misfortunate life days that never really got off the ground, where everything went a little wrong and took a hundred times more time and effort than it was really worth to fix it.  One of those days where you would just have been better off if you took yourself right back to bed.

Today’s ennui was caused by my attempt to alter a garment (instead of taking it to a store and getting a professional to do it).  Unfortunately for me, I ruined the garment, broke three sewing machine needles, and my sewing machine as well…

There was no good reason to continue.  Just perhaps whatever that something is that pushes you onwards regardless of where you end up.  Sheer bloody-mindedness in my case, the determination to conquer at all costs or perhaps more technically the escalation of commitment.  I’d spent so much time on the garment it seemed that to lay it aside would be to waste the effort I had already made.  Weird when I consider how many more worthwhile things there were on my to-do list today…

Theoretically, every moment is a new moment, and each is equally capable of being “good” or “bad”.  It doesn’t matter what the events leading up to that moment are, nor does it really matter where it goes.  It’s just one moment.  At any given time I could have made a different choice – I could have packed up my sewing, eaten a tim-tam (or two) and moved onto something else.

It’s not even as if I had to choose between “good” or “bad” – I could have chosen ambivalence.  Or postponement.  The alterations have been there for months, another day or two wouldn’t have mattered.

I don’t know why I kept going, I just did.  I hope that you did better than me.


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