I had a whole (very emo) journal entry written out about how I have always taken the safe route in life and that I believe I’m a coward for living that way. For context, I just finished the first draft of my proposal last night and woke up full of terrible angst about it all. Have I put my dreams of (writing my fiction stories and making my game) on hold just for this mediocre assembly of work?

But then I read Phil Agre’s guide to PhD life (again, probably my 4th time now), specifically the section on “Networking and your Dissertation” and I felt a little better about myself.

This paragraph, in particular, I keep coming back to:

Here is another way to understand it. Many beginning scholars experience a conflict between their own personal interests and the demands that the institution places on them. They feel that the politics of their department or discipline prevent them from pursuing the ideas that they care about, or that funding imperatives push them toward boring research topics that are geared to someone else’s agenda, or even that the research world in general is cynical and filled with self-interested poseurs. I’m not here to tell you that the research world is a thoroughly beautiful place. It’s a human place, with all of the virtues and vices that come with that. What you have to understand, and you have to trust me about this, is that most of the bad feelings that I have described are simply consequences of the structural process that you are passing through.

Thanks to the immortal Os Keyes for pointing me to Phil’s stuff (and for pulling me out of one of these deep holes a few years back).

Sure, I don’t like my thesis and probably never will. And yes, I have woes about feeling out of place all the time. And yes further, I really wish I had more time to write fiction and fight for stuff I believe in. But if all goes well, I still have years and years to do things I’m really proud of. Perhaps in time all of these smaller, uninspiring things I’ve spent my time doing will add up.