Once I finally felt settled in to Kitchener, and got over the hump of the first hard paper, things have been running smoothly. I have my routines, I have my stores, I found my bar, I have friends who show up at my parties, and invite me places, and even pick me up and drop me off from events in cartown.
At some point, it started to feel like it’s going too smoothly. I think it was when I got really good feedback on my reflection on social science’s use of complexity theory, and I let out a huge sigh of relief, which made me realize how intellectually intimidated I am by this professor. But I also realized that it means that I’m not necessarily feeling challenged enough, or intellectually intimidated by others. I worried that if I feel this way now, I might not feel challenged enough later. My term papers seem to be going smoothly. I have no fear of making up my comprehensive exam reading list—it seems like it will just happen, rather than feel like a challenge. And I got worried that I would not be challenged enough while preparing for my comprehensive exam, hence prepared to do well. Part of this is that I haven’t found another student whom I really “click” with on topic/strategy, which was the case of my master’s, and it felt really lonely at that point in time, especially when no one could give me substantial feedback on my work besides my supervisor. And he was so hard on me that I had a love hate relationship with our meetings. I worry that my advisors might not give me that slight gut wrenching feeling I need in order to excel.
I started to second guess my decision of where I am, which I think is pretty normal. I remember when I made my decision of which school to go to, I knowingly turned down someone who seemed to be a big scholar (actually, a couple I guess). It seemed justifiable at the time for so many reasons. But in my research for my comprehensives exam reading list, I keep coming across those names, and references to their work and pedigree keep surfacing. So I got really entangled in the thought that I’m doing good, but maybe I could be doing better. And maybe I thought that better was to bring in someone else from somewhere else (i.e. an external), which I can do for my comprehensive examination, but I can’t do it for my committee leading to my final defense, as the external is chosen without my knowledge, and everyone else is internal to the university. Or maybe better was somewhere else, because maybe I’m just not going to get the challenge I’m seeking here. I wasn’t really sure where to set the bar of achievement, or how high, and it felt like such a lack of a clear path with no rubric to follow, and very few people to talk about this to.
I spoke to a few friends about this, which I sort of labeled as a lame, elitist panic, but still my panic, and very real to me. Maybe a panic because I didn’t quite feel like I was fitting into the working world in the positions I held, and now I have a bit of fear that I can’t carve out my own niche in academia. I know I define a large part of my identity through what I do because I like that sense of accomplishment when I can get it. Or because I had given up a secure salary (even if not a secure job…), so I felt like I gave up a lot to be here, and as Rule 5 states, I should *be* here. Everyone I spoke with did a good job of listening and at least acknowledging what a concern this was to me, which made me start to feel better.
One friend in particular though, really gave me some excellent advice and has shown me how to turn it around for myself. He started by pointing out that “better” is the enemy of “good”. Because I’ve got it really good right now, I do. I have a really supportive set of classmates and some good exchanges. I’ve chosen courses based on whether it will train me as a researcher, and how to work within geographic epistomologies. I have an excellent apartment, with a great space to work and relax, with great landlords who are also friends. And I’m not afraid of politics biting me in the ass at this school, which is key. He pointed out that to a certain extent, this is what all PhD’s suffer through: by the time we’ve hit that point, we’ve figured out the mechanism to churn out papers at a the required level of thought, and we’ve learned the tricks of framing issues within our own disciplinary understanding. And the loneliness is really common, but really, it’s just a signal that I need to push forward to another level by creating new mechanisms to guide my work. He reminded me that it’s really up to me to create my own challenges. So, maybe I shouldn’t see my paper as what my professor will think, but start to think if it as a possible publication or conference presentation, and challenge myself through those venues. And that’s where I’m going to have to start making my own community for feedback and challenge. Which all seems like common sense, and I was sort of leaning that way already, but I really wasn’t connecting it all together that way and seeing the steps towards my ultimate goal. Instead, I was sitting around with “Now what? Is this it?” in my head. He also pointed out that regardless of where I was, I would probably hit this feeling at some point, so it’s better to stay where I know I’m supported.
What’s funny about self-diagnosis is that it’s impossible to do sometimes. A few of my dear friends are academics moving through PhDs, and I have seen this in them before. The questioning the institution, questioning their committee, or the intellectual isolation/loneliness. I’m not sure I’ve had such good insight into what it all means before, though. Leave it to the business strategy friend, who pointed out that the big thinkers, or innovators, at some point separate themselves from the goings-on around them, and figure out different way to push through, produce, and relate. As much as I hate to admit it, I did learn a lot from the 7 habits of highly effective people (although, why do they always have to use multinational corporate types who “strike big deals” as their examples, rather than cool artists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs who manage to keep afloat despite societies which don’t support them enough?), so I suppose that I should be picking up some more biographies/strategy readings on these types of thinkers to guide me through sometimes. Suggestions welcome.
