Another one of those “I’m so glad I know where I’m going” posts. No, I’m not manic depressive. Really – it’s just the emotional roller-coaster that is grad. school, combined with my strong drive for independence and the heady realization that just contemplating such things as lecturing on my own means I’m again in control of my life 🙂

I was an idiot to suspend what I was doing pending completion of my Ph. D. That I could manage my time so well as an undergrad. and then drop it all to retreat inwards in the horror of being suppressed at every turn as a graduate student is my own great error during this tumultuous period. I fought being consumed by the Ph. D., but in the wrong ways.

The idea to lecture – and the fact that I am coming up with so many productive ways to spend my time again in general – indicates to me that I’m finally getting my life back on the track it never should have left. I’m no longer considering what I can’t do or don’t have time to do… now I’m back to considering what I can. I know I can lecture on my own time because I have so much of it. I know I can work during my third year because I didn’t need a third in the first place. I know that my duty lies not in my research, but in my overall vision of how the world should be. Ultimately, the Ph. D. is just a tool to pursue it, not an end in itself.

It was stupid to forget who I was, to accept a bitter and painful existence as a tolerable norm, to forego the exaltation of making my own decisions based on my own values in exchange for servitude to the less competent; an anchor to a preordained track leading only to mediocrity. The choice was mine from the beginning; I am a fellow, not a research assistant.

I won’t allow this to happen a second time. I’ll do the research required to gain my degree and I’ll do the research that interests me… but I will not drop my entire life in the name of a degree.