Thesis Diary #6: Hemi Annus Horribilis

"I mustn't run away."

- Shinji Ikari

Sitting in the Monash Uni Postgraduate Room, working away on my thesis, it feels like my head has turned to lead and my fingers to stone. I say to myself that "I could walk away now - there's no shame in it. I could take the Grad Dip and walk away." But I ponder that point for a minute. This is me, making excuses. Excusing myself for something I didn't find immediately easy and thus put into the "too hard basket." But then I reduce it back to its origin: I chose this. This half year has been one of ashes. Ashes falling from the sky on to the ground wherever I walk. Some bright spots sure, but it's taken me to the absolute limit. I fly into a thrashing rage at the slightest provocation. I drag myself out of bed and look at myself in the mirror and find sunken black rings around my eyes. I feel irritable just lying in bed and just the other day, I broke my shoe after roundhouse kicking a punching bag. I'm full of frustration at the moment.

Writing about habitus, rock 'n' roll and media ecology isn't physically taxing. But after day - even half a day - at the library, I feel like collapsing into a heap. If I take an hour off to myself, it feels like I'm cheating. If I look for and/or attend jobs to keep some sort of income up now that I have no government support, I feel like I've sacrificed my studies. Then when I see my bank account roll into negatives, I curse my studies and wondered why I even bothered starting. 

Is any of this true? At this juncture, my synapses are so overloaded it makes rational thought almost impossible. I try to read Ellis and the Stoics each day, but new obstacles fall into my hands and I struggle to keep upright. I guess it could be worse. I feel grateful that it actually isn't. But then I challenge my reactions - is this all just perception, and how can I change it?

All I can say is that I will finish; its important to me to finish and with that determination, I will push forward and hopefully make the latter half of 2011 far more enjoyable than the first.

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Thesis Diary #5: White flags and red marks

Every man's life lies within the present, for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

- Marcus Aurelius

I got a fright - well, as much as one can be spooked by black text on a white screen - when my supervisor handed back a recent draft of my thesis - more red marks on it than something I would've handed in to a maths teacher in my high school years. But during this week, I reflected on the Stoic philosophers; Seneca the Younger, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. Re-reading the Meditations for the thousandth time, I was calmed by my own innate ability to take the present moment and approach my thesis in the same way. I had to surrender what I had done incorrectly as per the criterion and re-write or re-organize what I had done, one step at a time. A human mind boggles in the face of three things:

• nothingness; we cannot think of nothing nor can we experience a return to it 
• The imperceptibly small and,
• the extremely massive.

So 18,000 words seemed like an insurmountable obstacle if I approached as thus. But following the teachings that I have accumulated since my renaissance on life, I can reduce, compartmentalize and think of attacking a platoon, one by one instead of taking an entire army head on, with sword aloft and faltering courage in my heart. 

But grappling something with reason? Victory may not be assured, but it is certainly within the realms of achievable possibility. What one man can do, another can do. We all have within us the power to create great works, add to the knowledge of our culture or even hurt, maim or kill. But we also have the power of choice. We cannot choose everything we want in life; but what we can choose we can definitely make the most of. We surrender to time almost constantly - especially timing. Now two months remain but I remain calm. Think of the minutes wasted on Facebook and television; forsake them for minutes a day and hours in which to do what you please will magically appear before you!

People still ask, "So how many words have you done?" or "What are you up to?" I may answer 12,229 words are written but they are in no way "done." I fear that I will not be "done" I will merely have "handed it in." Will I ever be "done?" If I had it my way, I doubt I would.

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Thesis Diary #4: Verisimilitude and Perfection

About three months ago I resolved to go on a dating and sexual moratorium. I felt my heart and mind weren't in the right place to even consider dating again after a recent breakup; it hit me harder than I'd care to admit at the time and only now I feel that I'm in a position to even consider going "back on the market" again. However, during my dating moratorium, I ended up breaking it. I never went out of my way to seek a date or put myself out there for any type of meaningful, character-building rejection, but I did sleep with someone.

So I mulled over it a while. Was it so bad that I allowed this to happen? I enjoy having sex and sex is an enjoyable part of my masculinity - my very humanity. I enjoyed the act itself. So why feel guilt or shame over it? It didn't make me a "shit" or a "louse" (as Dr. Ellis would eloquently say.) After a time I remembered the words of friends and brothers: "You don't have to do it right, you just have to do it." This permeated the rest of my feelings and my thoughts - much like my thesis; I don't have to do it perfectly, I just have to do it. So I took an index card out of my deck and wrote that phrase down. I placed it on my wall next to my other collected affirmations. Funnily enough, an identical card was already to be found. It had completely slipped my mind.

So now, at the time of writing, I'm about a half way done - 9,117w down and almost as many to go. In the mean time, I've booked myself into the Walkley Foundation Freelance Conference. I attained my yellow belt in Sin Moo Hapkido. My article for ETC, was published (although I'm yet to receive a copy.) I'm writing reviews for the Pun for this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival. I've gone from under-employed to almost taking on too many projects to humanly handle while writing a thesis essentially full time.

Despite the nagging voice in the back of my head urging me to make everything perfect lest the world cave in around me, I have to remind myself that perfection is a state of mind and relatively relative. It's not worth attaching my sense of worth to attaining the almost impossible; I am a man and I have limitations - none more so limiting than the maladaptive beliefs that I can easily change. I can "lean" into challenge and try my best. If I that's what I can do, that's what I'll be content with.

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