Today I bought a book and it is important, this week, to renew membership to at least one more professional society, and then one more. It is important to have enough of the right equipment, and to thicken the atmosphere about you.
I am righting my listing research program. Not having a writing group over the break has been bad for my health, but there will soon be one again. Said research program needs more time and the approach is two pronged: use small blocs of time, for one thing, and lots of them, for another. This means minimizing the amount of time that goes on extraneous things, and reserving a lot of meditative, non work time as well as time for intellectual and artistic pleasure which does not have to do with the project. I think I will think of teaching that way this semester, actually — that will help minimize its more draining aspects.
I was trying to do this with that book I never wrote, and it did not work. I would put in time and think thoughts and write words, but I would not progress. This was confusing because it was after 25 years of working in a good rhythm — it was not as though I did not know how. It was exacerbated by Reeducation and some other circumstances like that, but the fundamental issue was one I could not name, and thus could not see, because it was such sacrilege: I wanted to take the project in another direction.
I did not know I could, because I had said I would revise it into a certain shape. I did not know I could deviate from that and did not know I had any options. So there was nothing of mine in the project. I did not know that not only did I have a right to put my own ideas in it; this was in fact expected. So it was not “fear of success” or “inability to commit” or “lack of confidence” or any of the things people have suggested to me; I could not connect with the project because it was not mine and I did not know I should make it mine.
It took me years to understand this because I held these beliefs so deeply that I could not have said them in words. Bringing them to light, realizing that these were the beliefs I held, was a large project, like unearthing one of those great stone medallions buried below Mexico City.
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During that time I gave many conference papers, on the topics I was actually interested in, treated in the ways I wanted. I knew how to turn these into articles but I did not allow myself because I was just giving those papers so as to get to hear other papers related to them and see book exhibits and a few people. I would speak the papers and then go back to wrestling with the book.
This way no progress was made and much fragmentation took place, especially since the situation caused me to take a job with a higher teaching load and a more varied one, many additional service and technical responsibilities, major curriculum reform and major politics. There just was not space-time in which to get things together; the constant problem was having too many different projects.
This situation has not really changed, although it is reconfigured and less chaotic than it has been at some points. But I am more familiar with it and in a better situation not to be blindsided. Having a writing group really is key, as I always knew.
I might actually hire a consultant to be my inner advocate negotiating teaching range. I know how the university could make good use of me teaching — even on a higher load — while still supporting research; we, here, too easily quail to their perceived “needs” which are sometimes not actual needs but habits.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 