I wonder what this compulsion is to endlessly say I'll do this or do that and then not do them at all. If I've learned one thing reading this journal it's the fact I say all kinds of things, some of them maybe to make a mark on paper, a kind of exhortation of the self, knowing deep down that I don't want to do them or that I don't want to do them right now. I, personally, don't think I like people like that. Do you?

Maybe it's a more deep seated thing than I know, something running in my head that makes me promise to do things because, well because I guess I'm supposed to do them and perhaps putting them down on paper (or talking endlessly to friends) will make them so. There are things in the world that you really have to finish. Projects at work where other people depend on you to deliver. And I procrastinate on those, but not nearly to the degree I procrastinate on myself.

I say I'm going to buy some light stands and shoot some inside shots. I buy the light stands and they do what they do best, they stand. In the corner. Will I use them one day? Yes. I will. But why all the brouhaha? Why make these promises at all? Nobody cares if you don't deliver on things you've promised to do for yourself. It's the endless chatter. Why all the talk?

This journal. I haven't promised to write an entry every day, although I list it as a "daily" journal. When I started at the end of last October, I promised that I'd write it for a month and then sit down and think about it. I continued, but without promising myself or anyone else I'd write it for one more day, let alone another month. Or two. And that's OK. That's making a promise I kept. That's the way it should go.

But shooting photographs using the light stands. I've thought about it for some time and that's fine. One day I'm going to use them and that will be fine, a new way (for me) to shoot photographs that will lead to portrait work. Good. Nice to have plans. But I didn't leave it there, I had to write it down. (Well, I've got a journal, so I write it down. Normally I discuss it at lunch with friends from work, although with them it tends to be "I'm going to move pretty soon". It's hard to work in light stands. Seems to be an, um, personal interest not shared by all.)

I have this little "say it out loud" routine that runs and runs and runs. Relax. Breathe deep. Think about it if you have to, but keep your mouth shut. Stop the god damned promises, at least the ones that don't matter. Hard enough to keep the ones that do.