Epicurean Epiphany
When I have papers due, I always bake/cook compulsively. I've done this since college. In fact, people in my complex couldn't wait until finals because I'd have a veritable feast awaiting anyone who walked in the door. I bake more than one person can possibly eat because it's not about the eating; it's about the baking, and it has to be from scratch.
What I thought, for a long time, was that it was merely procrastination. I enjoy writing, but I don't enjoy being forced to do ANYTHING, no matter how much I might enjoy the activity. So a paper deadline, in nature being out of my timetable, is not something I embrace readily.
I was discussing this compulsive baking with a friend the other day, mainly because it's harder to giveaway food to people in their late twenties and thirties than it was at 18. She suggested that perhaps it was more my need to destroy/create than a need to procrastinate. I gave a slight nod to her notion, but really, it was the procrastination thing that I felt glued the whole thing together.
That leads me to my epiphany. Since I started this program, I'm wondering why in the hell I started this program. I remember my masters' program clearly. I loved it! I was working full time, reading 4 novels a week, and writing four 10 page essays a week and it never felt like drudgery. On top of that, I had to write poetry for my thesis. Not a problem. So workloadwise, this PhD is not a problem either. Academically, it's a cinch, as well. Aside from one blip of a paper, I've gotten a perfect score on everything I've turned in. So what's the damn problem?
Here it is: as with everything, I'm lured into it with false hopes. Here's where my usual cynicism gets put on the back burner. A new opportunity is exciting, and I turn off the inner cynic just long enough to ignore the fact that the bastards I'm talking to are blowing sunshine up my ass. Case in point--this dumbass program. My entrance essay and my initial interview were all about my hopes for my dissertation. I won't detail it here, but it's creative. For my master's thesis, I chose the creative option--writing a chapbook of poetry. For this, I had a similar creative option in mind. They liked it. It was fresh, new, original. Now? Not so much. Now they are forcing me into this stereotypical little research box, and that is so not me. They're trying to morph me into a little automaton, and I don't like it. I resist it every step of the way.
So yes, my friend is right. I have an overwhelming need to destroy and create. I sometimes fantacize about having the ability to paint or sculpt because the thought of getting my hands wet with goo and letting that goo become something exhilarates me. My writing is the same way. I don't write what's in my head or what I observe. I let the writing form from the chaos, words twisting in a tornadic fury and splattering themselves on the page--the Big Bang of creative writing, I suppose. And lately I've been missing my old job. Why? Because despite its problems, I was allowed to run free and create whatever I wanted. I wasn't stifled (at least not until the end), and because of that, I was one of the best at what I did.
But these people are shooting my ideas down with the phrase, "Yeah, that's just not what we do here. Why don't you just use someone else's data set and write a nice little dissertation on it." Where did that come from? What changed in 2 months? Prior to my acceptance, I was this budding genius on the brink of something new. Now I'm some fucking tool? Fuck that. Fuck it. I won't do it, and the thing is, I don't need this damned PhD. I went back for me. I don't want to teach in academia. I don't need the damned thing, and I suppose that's what frees me.
It explains my distaste for Lubbock, as well. Even their art complies to some mandate for fear of censorship. Yes, they censor art here. Poetry, too. I was asked to participate in a poetry jam next weekend, but the stipulations were too much. Nursery rhymes wouldn't even comply. And it explains why I feel like an outlier. I don't fit in because people here, well, they fit in anywhere. I don't.
So where does that leave me? Well, I don't know. Because I'm really not the type of person who can have creativity in one part of life and not the other. I can't just find an "outlet." It's not the way I'm wired. I need meaning and creativity in every aspect of life or I feel out of sorts. And this program--despite the rigidity, it is a phenomenal and rigorous program. I'm learning by leaps and bounds, so I will continue as long as I am learning something. But whatever I do, I will find some way to create.
Ok paper time, but first--red velvet cake. mmmmmm.
What I thought, for a long time, was that it was merely procrastination. I enjoy writing, but I don't enjoy being forced to do ANYTHING, no matter how much I might enjoy the activity. So a paper deadline, in nature being out of my timetable, is not something I embrace readily.
I was discussing this compulsive baking with a friend the other day, mainly because it's harder to giveaway food to people in their late twenties and thirties than it was at 18. She suggested that perhaps it was more my need to destroy/create than a need to procrastinate. I gave a slight nod to her notion, but really, it was the procrastination thing that I felt glued the whole thing together.
That leads me to my epiphany. Since I started this program, I'm wondering why in the hell I started this program. I remember my masters' program clearly. I loved it! I was working full time, reading 4 novels a week, and writing four 10 page essays a week and it never felt like drudgery. On top of that, I had to write poetry for my thesis. Not a problem. So workloadwise, this PhD is not a problem either. Academically, it's a cinch, as well. Aside from one blip of a paper, I've gotten a perfect score on everything I've turned in. So what's the damn problem?
Here it is: as with everything, I'm lured into it with false hopes. Here's where my usual cynicism gets put on the back burner. A new opportunity is exciting, and I turn off the inner cynic just long enough to ignore the fact that the bastards I'm talking to are blowing sunshine up my ass. Case in point--this dumbass program. My entrance essay and my initial interview were all about my hopes for my dissertation. I won't detail it here, but it's creative. For my master's thesis, I chose the creative option--writing a chapbook of poetry. For this, I had a similar creative option in mind. They liked it. It was fresh, new, original. Now? Not so much. Now they are forcing me into this stereotypical little research box, and that is so not me. They're trying to morph me into a little automaton, and I don't like it. I resist it every step of the way.
So yes, my friend is right. I have an overwhelming need to destroy and create. I sometimes fantacize about having the ability to paint or sculpt because the thought of getting my hands wet with goo and letting that goo become something exhilarates me. My writing is the same way. I don't write what's in my head or what I observe. I let the writing form from the chaos, words twisting in a tornadic fury and splattering themselves on the page--the Big Bang of creative writing, I suppose. And lately I've been missing my old job. Why? Because despite its problems, I was allowed to run free and create whatever I wanted. I wasn't stifled (at least not until the end), and because of that, I was one of the best at what I did.
But these people are shooting my ideas down with the phrase, "Yeah, that's just not what we do here. Why don't you just use someone else's data set and write a nice little dissertation on it." Where did that come from? What changed in 2 months? Prior to my acceptance, I was this budding genius on the brink of something new. Now I'm some fucking tool? Fuck that. Fuck it. I won't do it, and the thing is, I don't need this damned PhD. I went back for me. I don't want to teach in academia. I don't need the damned thing, and I suppose that's what frees me.
It explains my distaste for Lubbock, as well. Even their art complies to some mandate for fear of censorship. Yes, they censor art here. Poetry, too. I was asked to participate in a poetry jam next weekend, but the stipulations were too much. Nursery rhymes wouldn't even comply. And it explains why I feel like an outlier. I don't fit in because people here, well, they fit in anywhere. I don't.
So where does that leave me? Well, I don't know. Because I'm really not the type of person who can have creativity in one part of life and not the other. I can't just find an "outlet." It's not the way I'm wired. I need meaning and creativity in every aspect of life or I feel out of sorts. And this program--despite the rigidity, it is a phenomenal and rigorous program. I'm learning by leaps and bounds, so I will continue as long as I am learning something. But whatever I do, I will find some way to create.
Ok paper time, but first--red velvet cake. mmmmmm.
posted by Cranky at 10:20 AM
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