With two deadlines before lunch, I shouldn’t be writing this. Instead, I should be tending to those deadlines — methodically scratching away at the tasks in a way that guarantees both efficiency and quality. I should be working at them — letting my fresh second coffee animate the things I not-so-emphatically call ‘work-work’ instead of this work — the work of expression, the work of release.

But what I’ve learned over these past few weeks — in which ‘busy’ has been the watchword in a way that I’m not at all happy about — is that carving out the time for that ‘extra’ task is what will, in the end, make you think and work better in the long run.

I do journalism and copy writing to earn a living now, and I’m coming on to nearly a year of freelancing with that particular set of skills handy. Other opportunities may be in the offing once the summer is through — and there are some potentially life-changing events set to happen along the way — and of course, the ‘passion projects‘ will always be there; beacons of hope and motivation, of more expression, and more release.

But what this work means above all is that the effort often ends up feeling ephemeral. The work is not solid in any way — it fades away as the article makes its point and does its rounds, or the piece of copy writing is absorbed by the client and put to its work of passing on business information or getting those clicks in. It would be silly to invoke the Marxist idea of feeling alienated from the means of production (it probably borders on offensive for those charged with necessary but underpaid and demeaning manual labour) but there is at least a smidgen of psychological truth to the comparison, I think.

Which is why doing this is important, in this moment, right now. Just like it’s important to read every day no matter how overwhelming things get, or to try and write — not out of some point-scoring principle, but to help tamp down those deadline-shot nerves and fractured perceptions.

Because that’s what the internet — that other crucial tool for my freelance arsenal — has done for us. It has energised, but it’s also fractured and fragmented us. So that the more we’re lost in its morass, the harder it is to get out. You end up working in nervous-mode the whole time, and every day starts to feel like one of Hercules’ labours (yes, the one involving snake heads).

So instead of slicing off snake heads in a futile and frustrating sport, I try to carve out this time instead. In the hopes that it will provide the necessary breathing room to focus my remaining energy in a way that’s free of distraction and despair.

Now, back to those deadlines.