Sto Lavorando

A lecturer on my course asked me the other day why I spent so much time thinking about doing work but not actually doing it. He said it in a jokey way but I knew what he meant. At the time I couldn't think of an answer that sounded good, in retrospect now, this is what I should have told him:

Ludovico Buonarroti was Michelangelo's father.

He was a wealthy man but he was also a snob. Ludovico had no understanding of the divinity in his son, so he beat him. No child of his was going to use his hands for a living. So Michelangelo learned not to use his hands. Years later, a visiting Prince came into Michelangelo's studio and found the master staring at a single 18-foot block of marble. Then he knew the rumors were true that Michelangelo had come in every day for the past four months, stared at the marble, and gone home for his supper. So the Prince asked the obvious, "What are you doing?"

Michelangelo turned around and looked at him and whispered, "Sto lavorando". "I'm working."

Three years later, that block of marble was the Statue of David.

That story would have made him laugh his ass off, but it's my excuse for not doing work for the moment. If you ever need an excuse to justify sitting around and not applying yourself to the task at hand just say to people "Sto lavorando" - you may not be making the Statue of David, but thinking about how you are going to do the work is work too.