I’m sure you’ve heard of FOMO.
It’s Fear Of Missing Out and it is definitely a first world problem. I have known entire families afflicted with this, and would like to ask them about it, though it’s tricky to talk to them because they’re usually ferrying their children between venues, or rushing off themselves.
I have never had FOMO, mainly because I’m wonderfully anti-social, I prefer people one at a time, or by email rather than entire rooms full of folk, especially if they are all talking at once. Once I may have thought that was good, and joined societies and groups, but teaching cured me of the need to have large numbers of people in enclosed spaces, and also, and especially, in fields.
My ideal number of people is one, and it’s me.
However I now realise I have FODTWT quite badly, or extremely thoroughly, depending on how you look at it.
FODTWT Fear Of Doing The Wrong Thing. Yes, I am a Fodtwit. Right now I am supposed to be dressing dolls for Miniatura but I am dragging my heels (and the rest of me) because now I am doll dressing my brain is flooded with ideas for card making. You may say (feel free) that I might not think of that, if I stopped watching crafting channels while I work. Not only do I watch, I join in with emails. I’ve been on television, as an email, every day for the last week. Should I stop watching television while I work?
I tried that and it was worse. In the silence I write novels, paint pictures and do DIY. It got so bad yesterday I stopped, changed into my gardening top and painted the inside of the airing cupboard. It wasn’t until I got to washing the brush that I found I had entirely missed my top with the paint but not my nice velvet jeans. It washed off with a sponge but I spent the rest of the day worrying if sitting in wet jeans was detrimental to anything. I would have changed them but I was trying to catch up with dressing, there’s a man been sitting in this room for two days now waiting for trousers. (A doll, it’s a doll.)
When I am making cards I think about dressing dolls. The only two occupations I have found that are entirely self sufficient in the grey cells are painting a wall (yes it did work with the airing cupboard, when I was in the airing cupboard I was there and nowhere else,) and gardening. And porcelain pouring but I don’t do that very often. And meditating, obvs.
There are more possible connections in the human brain than there are atoms in the known universe. We know this (someone made the connection) but no one has explained to my satisfaction why all the ends start buzzing when you are doing something else. Is it a rush of blood to the head? Probably not. All the blood in your body goes through your brain every seven and a half minutes. Is it handedness and the opposite side of the brain? (If you are left handed, you are really right brained.) Is it that a train of thought has many destinations, more like a long distance coach journey than a train, in fact?
Whatever it is, it seems to be true that as soon as I settle to one thing I worry that I should be doing something else. Is the busy brain in league with my lazy OH? ‘While you’re in the kitchen, could you…?’
I did know someone who was fond of saying that if you want something done you should ask a busy person. He remained an acquaintance never being that busy himself.
I don’t know. Well I might if I thought about it some more, but now I’m writing, I feel as if I should be dressing dolls. If I get started now, in ten minutes our Leonie will be on Create and Craft demonstrating block printing, so in half an hour I’ll have designed my own sari and had ideas for a range of bedlinen, some guest towels and reusable shopping bags.
At least.
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I’ll be taking my dolls to Miniatura. Details at www.miniatura.co.uk
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