Leonardo da Vinci was a Procrastinator
On his deathbed, they say, Leonardo da Vinci regretted that he had left so much unfinished. I feel as though I am in pretty good company now. Not that I am currently on my deathbed, but, as my wife will happily tell you, I sometimes procrastinate.
Okay, so I don’t pay bills until I get a disconnection notice. And there is a computer sitting in my study that I was supposed to fix 3 months ago. But like I said, at least I’m in good company.
Leonardo had so many ideas; he was so ahead of his time. His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new high-tech weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river, Leonardo could devise something that just might work. (Chronicle Review)
But like any great idea man, Leo rarely got things done. All the stuff he put in his sketchbooks mostly just stayed in the sketchbooks. Most of the time he was like me: trying to dodge bill collectors while simultaneously thinking up new ideas. Old Leonardo had a lot of commissions for paintings and sculptures, but he took his pay up front, and took his time on the work. Sometimes he never finished them at all. Even the “Mona Lisa” was still at his place when he kicked off. Aparently he was still working on it.
Despite being a smart cookie, if Leonardo was in the 21st century, he would probably be fired for his irresponsibility. He wasn’t one to hold down a job.
A friar named Sabba di Castiglione said of Leonardo, “When he ought to have attended to painting in which no doubt he would have proved a new Appelles, he gave himself entirely to geometry, architecture, and anatomy.”
Da Vinci was a man who went where his genius called, and his life’s work consists of a series of obsessions, most of them unfinished. Society hates to deal with genius, but loves people like da Vinci after they are dead and gone.
