multijimbo

Growing up in Georgia, a common site on our drives down to the coast to visit my grandparents was a field covered in kudzu, often with a suspicious indistinct bump in the middle where we suspected a house still stood, covered when it wasn’t looking.

I had the intention of writing a post herein starting from that image, of the irresistible and irrepressible progress of kudzu across a landscape, consuming everything in its path, a terrifying invasive species that was consuming the South.

But then, I did some reading and I discovered that much of what I knew about kudzu was rumor and speculation, and in fact I didn’t know much at all.  For those who are interested in the side of right in the battle between myth and fact, I recommend Bill Finch’s recent article The True Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South

As much as I enjoyed finding out the truth about kudzu, it did rather puncture the analogy that I’ve constructed in my head, about habits spreading in my mind the same way that kudzu spreads across the southern landscape.

I struggle with some of my habits.  I struggle with procrastination, though I’m working on it and I’ve discussed this elsewhere.  And I struggle with the development of new habits, to which my erratic posting history for this blog will strongly attest.

So perhaps my analogy was fatally flawed from the get go.  Perhaps the view I expressed in the title of this short piece is wrong and I need to adopt a different view of habits and my relationship with my habits.  Food for thought.

~ by Jim Anderson on 7 February 2016.

Posted in bizarre and random things
Tags: habits, kudzu, procrastination