Neither Here Nor There: Fragments of Scattered Thoughts

I am forcing myself to start writing again. I’ve thought an awful lot about writing and what I might write if I was going to write, but I’ve been caught up in what you might call the ‘post-postgraduate daze’ or the ‘I’ve-used-all-my-words-for-the-next-ten-years’ mentality (all 80,000 of them I might add).

While I have been tutoring, marking, guest lecturing, and preparing an academic article for publication (see, not that lazy!), I am uncertain about what to do next. If I could choose only one word to describe my present state of mind it would have to be: indecisive. And it strikes me that I've never really been in this career-defining position before. At least, not since I was 17 and making the decision to go to university in the first place. To use an appropriate illustration – I am like a stunned possum, frozen in the beam of a set of very bright headlights. The headlights are the future and, as the possum, I am not sure whether to just keep staring at this imminent and unknowable future hoping for the best, or, against all possum-like instincts, make a dash in some purposeful direction…the question is, which direction?!

The ‘question’ itself, I suppose, is: do I choose ‘work’ (popular perception: the 9-5-hour workday in a company with a decent salary) or do I choose ‘academia’ (popular perception: an ‘un-work’ like career in which I am disassociated from the ‘real world’ and observe goings-on from an ivory tower). For me personally, that ivory tower is appealing (I have grand delusions of hermit-hood). So if someone was willing to pay me to sit in an office with a nice window and a pot plant on the desk for the express purpose of researching and writing on interesting ideas and topics all day, with the occasional requirement to dabble (and dabble only) in teaching, then I would be more than happy. But doubtless my idealised vision of academic life and the part I might play in it is somewhat unrealistic (and potentially boring).

Still, the whole idea of an academic career - a chance delve to the very deepest depths and explore the vast uncharted horizons of a chosen field - is very appealing. Yet distant. Elusive. 

Frustratingly elusive and uncertain.

Yes, I am curious, driven, focused, determined, open minded, and so on and so on (as the Auckland University ‘so you want to be an academic’ speakers recommend). And I don’t doubt my ability to do a PhD or teach or research or write. But is it the right thing to do? Will it make me happy? Will I be usefully contributing to anything? What if I suck at interviewing people? What if no one is interested in the academic 'space' I choose to carve for myself? Am I too idealistic, too fragile, too nice to make a career of it? Will there even be any jobs available when I finish? What if no one will hire me? Ultimately, all these 'what-ifs' are merely speculation, and subsequently, pointless. Yet they are ‘real’ in a metaphorical sense. And so I can’t ignore that tightening, pulsating feeling of anxiety they produce; irrationalities that require more than fearlessness and blind ambition to resolve.

And where does that leave me? The present me, the Why Won’t She Just Make Up Her Mind me.

Planning. Meditating. Writing.

Experimenting.

Doing things differently, taking it easy, being present.

Or alternatively: panicking, worrying, questioning. There is little consistency within this unnerving state of indecisiveness. Nor does it engender eloquence or literary acumen. My writing frustrates me. I sit down and try to start something and fail to commit to its completion. I don’t even start sometimes. I’m limited to fragments; individual words and singular ideas.

I’m not explaining all this, whatever this is, to garner sympathy or encouragement, I know what I should be doing. Action is inevitable. But I want to shake off this listlessness. End the dry spell. Be proud of myself rather than annoyed at my apparent stagnation. And saying all this, getting it out of my system, is part of the process. Unloading the uncertainties and examining them one by one until I feel I can finally confront them with energy and even a smile. An ‘I laugh in the face of adversity’ attitude, a ‘fake it till you make it’ smile.

Ugh, so many platitudes. This is ugly writing. It’s sort of scratchy.

I apologise and yet I don’t.

It makes me feel better. Formulating these scattered annoyances into fragmented pieces of badly written self-analysis. There is a freedom and letting go that has to occur, and then a bravery to actually post something so unapologetically pretentious and haphazard. It is a step in accepting that I can’t have everything right and perfect all the time, that any decision could be the right decision, that not knowing is perhaps better than knowing.

One step forward at a time. And in anticipation, I promise musings on books, reading and actual decisions next time.