Or, Rematando al rechingado de Robert Boice.
I see myself in some of Boice’s examples, as in being busy all the time but not making progress, and spending time contemplating the problem which could, at least in theory, be time spent tackling the job.
Of course, when a colleague from another school visited and saw how we work here, he thought that the reason we were busy all the time and yet not making progress was that we were being obstructed and having to fight our way upstream.
And of course, I believe in understanding what it is I am tackling before I try, once again, to solve a problem and fail due to the use of a misguided approach. Yet I still see myself in his examples, as I can be very, very, very avoidant indeed.
Boice, however, believes avoidant people do not know what they are avoiding, and/or that what they are avoiding is irrational, unreal. I, however, know exactly what I am avoiding and it is utterly real: disabling terror, venues in which rationally I need to exert power but the rules state I may not, or else I do not actually have the power I would need, fractious people making demands and issuing edicts, an untenable number of unknown variables, a lack of information, and the fact of being manipulated but not understanding how.
These are the conditions under which I teach language classes, and they are why I waited until the very last possible day to read the finals and make the grades. They were also the conditions in which I procrastinated — not about writing that book I did not want to write, but about deciding I would not write it.
So that is what I have to say to Boice and the Boiceans for this hour.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
From my very first post at this URL:
“What, then, is manipulation? In some instances, it involves the conscious use of subterfuge and suggestion. In the more interesting instances, it involves no such conscious intention. All parties involved know there is something happening, but they don’t know what it is. They respond to it, but their motivations are not entirely clear, to each other or to themselves. Thus do entire families, universities, and nation-states move inexorably towards their undesired doom.”