There are things I love about academia. Being in the throes of confessing your intellectual opinions, thinking deeply and critically about a paper, and reading a paper or article and having it spawn your own ideas.
But academia has its shortcomings. Ultimately, (in the style of Foucault) it’s a hegemonic institutional power. I don’t love the system or how it works. Most of all, I don’t like being confined to a disciplinary or methodological box: I want to write academically, I want to research and write based on critical thought, but I want to write how I want to write, and not be concerned whether it fits the criteria of a disciplinary style or method, whether it fits the scope of a journal, or fits a writing style that’s acceptable or lauded by the institution as a whole.
Reflecting on this has greatly affected the direction of my future studies, it factors into my choice of school to complete doctoral work, and what precisely I want to do after doctoral work. Let me be clear, I think it’s important to have a degree (or a few) within traditional academia, and 3 of my 4 degrees have been completed at mainstream academic universities. Similarly, I have no regrets about living in Toronto, and I would encourage everyone to partake in an experience like that. It broadened my horizons, and I treasure that time and the things it taught me…but I also wouldn’t put down roots in a city like that. Similarly, I had originally planned on taking a largely traditional academic route, but was aiming to be bi-vocational – split my time between my professional career, and research and teaching in the academy. But as I learn more about the academy and the ways that it functions, I feel like it stifles me. It stifles my writing and what I have to offer. I simply want to research and write academically, but I want my work to be publicly available. How many citations my writing gets, or the ranking of the journal I publish in isn’t important to me, yet these things are important to make it in the academy. I simply want to offer others the same opportunity of a touchstone that so many articles and books have been for me. I want to put my two cents in, and provide a broader canvas of opinions from which to draw, in order for others to make their own thoughts, insights and arguments. Maybe the person who reads my academic blog or my article in Aeon (I’m simply giving examples, my hubris does not extend to assuming I can accomplish these things) is inspired and then returns that full circle to the academy by reformulating it, reconceiving it, transposing it, or drawing from it. Maybe for the reader, disciplines and the academy are not stifling, they are the reader’s bread and butter. In this way, I hope that my desired place in an academic-adjacent venue can still contribute to traditional academia, but indirectly, and in a way that allows me to give my very best.
So what am I trying to say here, with all this ‘me, me, again in the key of me’ (as my supervisor so humorously and aptly put it)? I think my point is that as young adults, we are given a set of options: A, B, or C. And so we just take that at face value and consider those options. But what happens when we refuse to accept those options and creatively cultivate option D? Thinking ‘outside the box’ is the hallmark of landmark academic work, but thinking outside the box also allows us to lead more functional and fulfilling lives. As the Zen saying goes, “Do not squander your life”. Imagining only the options we are presented with sometimes encourages us to squander our lives. I think a lot about Nietzsche’s problem of eternal recurrence and it often informs the choices I make (for the better, I might add). True, part of the privilege of imagining option D is that I have a livelihood, but this is also something to consider as young adults: often, options A, B and C seem like the only plausible ones because we all need a roof over our head and need to eat, but what would it look like, how is it possible to combine putting a roof over our head with option D? This is where thinking creatively and consciously about how to carefully curate our lives comes in. Karma dictates that each of our choices contributes (with other factors) to our future, so we should choose mindfully. Part of what makes a vocation meaningful or satisfying is not its ultimate meaning or purpose, but how it feels on a day to day basis – its stresses, its benefits, what it provides in a practical way (and by practical, I don’t just mean financial, but whether you get a social reward, an introverted reward, a separation from leisure time reward, and much more).
I know everyone’s situation is different, and I am not aiming here to give any advice. Everyone is the master of their own life and we all have to deal with the consequences of the choices we make (even if we don’t know what they will be). All I’m trying to do is create an alternative vision – to show that there is an option D that exists. Which option you choose is ultimately up to you, and there are no wrong choices – we learn from all of our decisions, regardless of their positive or negative consequences. All my best on this wild journey of discovery.