Suppose I am awake three hours before the opening time of the day, attempting in a pre-morning state to write the start of this essay. Suppose this particular essay will be the kernel of the book that will buy me the luxury of quitting my job and writing at my leisure. Until then, all writing must take place on the cusp of the day, and at the table in the one-room apartment where I also eat my meals, compose emails, take phone calls, experience a range of feelings. Suppose my feelings are currently high anxiety and latent resentment.
Based on data gathered daily over the course of eighteen months, there is a one-in-three chance that I will receive some form of demanding communication from my employer before I reach the day’s official threshold, after which eight hours are sealed for the renting of my labor to this man. Now, suppose the essay I am composing must, according to its editor, be filed by the end of this workweek. If I need five predawn sessions to complete this piece of writing, and assuming the independence each day of the likelihood that my employer diverts my attention in the sacred writing period, the statistical function known as the binomial distribution allows us to calculate the chance of a fatal disruption to the essay’s execution as 87 percent.
You have reached your article limit
Sign up for a digital subscription and continue reading all new issues, plus our entire archives, for just $1.50/month.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
