Well I've been up since 5.30 this morning (third day in a row - trying to catch up after spending two days in emotional turmoil at the beginning of the week - don't ask) and am still un-showered and in my dressing gown. It's come to a sorry pass when I regard getting dressed (or keeping clean) as displacement activity. Just before I started my PhD my supervisor warned me not to let it become 'an obsession'. She also reminded me yesterday that there is more to life than study. I hear her ... now all I have to do is listen.
What??? Again??
15 years ago
1 comments:
I want to qualify this comment by saying that I speak only for myself...using “I” statements. This is my personal reaction to your sentiments, and I’m not at all suggesting that you (or anyone else) should view this in the same way. To begin, I must say that I only partially agree with your supervisor. Yes, “there is more to life than study”. But put this way, it sounds to me like study is an “activity” that can be turned on and off, and I don’t experience it that way. Given the type of "study" undertaken in a doctoral, qualitative research project, particularly one that I am personally and deeply vested in, I don’t view the process as a standalone activity in my life. This work is woven throughout ALL of my lived experiences. It is shaping and informing my entire experience of being. As such, I never try to turn it off or walk away from it...because for me, this is impossible. I do however acknowledge “where I am” in any given moment. When I’m in a “PhD work” space, I work on my PhD, and when I’m not, I don’t. It isn’t always easy or comfortable to accept the “space” I’m in at a particular moment. But “acceptance” is my ultimate goal, which is in stark contrast to aspiring or trying to be in a space other than that which I am actually in. Granted, I do have many other “identities” or “roles” in life (father, grandfather, sibling, friend, colleague, citizen, etc.), but each of these is influenced by my identity as a PhD student. This is because my topic, my area of study (like that of many PhD students) is intrinsically bound up with who I am. My “study” is not an objective experience of exploring other people’s lives, or a phenomenon outside of me. My engagement with the “topic” is an engagement with myself (or selves, if you will). I am a co-participant in this project. The meanings that participants make of their stories will be informed by my engagement with them and in turn, my meaning making will be informed by their engagement with me. The co-constructive nature of this “work” makes it a part of my entire being. It IS a vital piece of my lived experience, and is constantly changing my way of seeing myself, seing others and seeing the collective. So, when I’m in that place where I forgo personal hygiene and spend countless hours on my project, I try very hard to simply accept this. And, when I’m not in that place, I try not to fret about it or convince myself that I “should” be doing "the work" right now. If as a result, this means I will take longer than “anticipated” to complete the project, then so be it. After all, my dissertation will someday be “finished”, but the project (in terms of its contribution to my subjective lived experience) will remain unfinished...it is ongoing. Consequently, I too “hear” my supervisor (and the voices of several others), and I do consider these. But in the end, I focus on my internal voice; the one that tells me "where I am" in this very moment. Yet, as qualified above, I write here only about me. BE WELL...
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