It turns out the ancient Greeks may well have procrastinated. And Leonardo da Vinci left a whole stack of unfinished projects. Also—this is conjecture on my part, but seems plausible—I'm guessing the people of Pompeii spent their final moments wishing they'd been a bit more on the ball about fleeing that bubbling volcano.
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Some of the kindest, most interesting people are pretty lazy, and not at all powerful. Take da Vinci: He was totally awesome, despite—as my extensive research suggests—being an easily distractible scattershot. His very strength was that he allowed his mind to wander where it pleased, instead of always locking into the task at hand. Sure, maybe you wouldn't want da Vinci as your air-traffic controller. But you'd definitely want to have a beer with him—am I right? And despite his problems knuckling down, the guy produced oodles of brilliant, imaginative work.
The author didn't repeat any of the large additional body of evidence that Leonardo was a great procrastinator, but I could add this: Leonardo never seemed to actually finish his portrait of Mona Lisa. He did not deliver it to her or to her family. Well, maybe she was just never ready for him to finish painting. Maybe she's the champion procrastinator in this story. There's always an excuse.
The truth is, Leonardo took Mona Lisa's portrait with him when he went to France at the end of his life, and the king of France acquired it after Leonardo died. It has been French national property ever since.
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