Ruts are cosy. Mine is decorated with indecisive wallpaper and unhung pictures. Half the floor is swept, the broom standing in a corner gathering dust, a duster to dust the broom lying alongside it in the unswept dirt.
I’ve lost count of the personal projects I’ve started and progressed and abandoned. Creative detritus that had life only when fermenting in my brain, expiring once expressed.
Curiously, work projects nag constantly at me; aeons ago at some offsite/jolly I was labelled a completer-finisher, and at work, that’s true. Last week I finished an on-and-off rewrite of a bunch of JavaScript, transforming – let me be charitable – an organically grown mishmash into 6800 lines of vaguely modern code that receives the silent blessing of jslint with some strict options. The original, cheddary code in question has been twitching my nostrils for a couple of years now; I’ve been tackling chunks whenever an opportunity arose.
At home, though, projects wither on the Avaragado vine. I wonder why that is – and, unsurprisingly, never reach a conclusion.
The front runner: finishing implies exposing whatever it is to the critical gaze of Others. I cannot fail if I do not complete – except, of course, the marathon runner who gives up after eighteen miles can hardly be said to have succeeded. Thus, perversely, by trying to avoid failure I guarantee it.
It’s odd, as – if I might tootle my personal trumpet for a moment – the things I accidentally manage to complete do not on the whole get me pelted with unsold-by flora and fauna and bin juice balloons. (Climate change denier trolls don’t count.)
Perhaps, then, the projects I toss unfinished into the dirty corner of my rut, by the broom and the duster, are simply those my subconscious insists are just not up to scratch. It’s hard to be sure. I do know, however, that – oh look, a squirrel.
Avaragado's blog 
Been watching Up by any chance?
Actually, I still haven’t seen it – but now you mention it I recognise the line from a clip I saw.