Procrastination Essay on - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Procrastination – An essay on If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler written by Italo Calvino

Perhaps this sentence would suit as the closing one. Well at least I have to consider it. Finally, ideas are starting to evolve now that I have sat myself down with my cup of coffee; Calvino thought drinking coffee was adequate for reading and writing, so I drink it while I do just that, read or write. The amount of procrastination this essay has received is not even measurable through the metric system; such large amounts are we talking about, well that is how my mind put it. I think the deadline was the 21st of December and today it’s the 14th of March, the accurate word for this instance would be insane. An understanding for how evil my procrastinating self can become has been stated. Let’s google procrastination, did you get the same hit as I did? “Procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority” I could not possibly agree more. “To beat procrastination you have to win the performing-race against your procrastinating self”, well let’s start beating this procrastinating dude then, to begin with, what should I write about? Maybe I can use this procrastination situation in my essay, after all the first six pages in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino are all about procrastination. Or should I write about how the novel is structured with every second chapter being a separate story and how that is entwined with the duality of procrastination? Perhaps I could relate the novel to a movie or two, now that I think about it The Matrix has quite a parallel I could write about.

The exordial six pages of the novel are all about procrastination. When you have read them you have not actually began read the actual story yet. His prefatory sentence is “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Relax. Concentrate.” That single word about is what fascinates the one opening the book. Italo Calvino describes how the reader should read the book in a uniquely personal way. It almost feels like he is standing right behind you, whispering the words. When Calvino’s description finally transcends into the tangible story, it only lasts for a chapter as the second chapter brings the reader back to this state of being “outside” the story.

If my first paragraph of the body of my essay ends with me writing about how I felt like I came into a state of being “outside” of the story I have to interweave it with the first sentence of the second body-paragraph. My teacher always talks about how important that is, wait, now I’m the one jumping “outside” of my essay, I can’t do that, that’s just confusing. Where was I? Yes, every second chapter, that’s right. Every second chapter of the novel consists of a free-standing story, that is not directly connected to the parallel story running in between these chapters nor connected to the other detached stories. These short tales serve as the procrastination of the novel. As every second chapter appears the main-story pauses, only to be unpaused the second the chapter has been read. This duality of procrastination exists in life beyond the novel as well. When ones procrastinating self reigns, it pauses what is important with the clock still ticking, leaving it unfinished until the ruler have been conquered.

The clock is not just ticking in this novel and in reality. In the movie The Matrix, the opposite occurs. There, the real world can not be paused, while the fictional world called The Matrix, can be, just as procrastination does it. When The Matrix is paused, the real world keeps on ticking, creating the possibility of living in The Matrix and the real world simultaneously, which is not possible in the novel where one has to choose whether to be in the main story or a free-standing one. There is one specific scene where the main character, Neo, is offered two pills, a blue and a red pill. If he chooses the red pill, he will remain in The Matrix, and if he chooses the blue pill he will stay outside, in the real world. Now Neo has a choice this novel does not offer, instead of being offered a pill, each chapter contains a pill, every second chapter a blue pill and vice versa.

Let me think, if I were to choose between the red and the blue pill, where the red pill intended a world with procrastination and the blue pill a world without it I would definitely choose the blue one. Just as Noe does. Wow, I’m getting tired, It’s spelled Neo of course. An anagram for One referring to “The One”. I think I need another coffee. No, I just can’t keep procrastinating myself with ideas regarding my essay or making coffee all day, I must start writing now. Perhaps this sentence would suit as the initiating one.