Thesis Diary #7: The Hazards of Overqualification

"It's the awareness, the full experience of how you are stuck that makes you recover and realize the whole thing is just a nightmare."

- Dr. Fritz S. Perls

So I'm into the home stretch. Approximately 5,000 words to write and only a few more pieces of research to collate and I'm into the editing phase. Many thanks must go out to Leticia for her suggestion to collaborate with a fellow "metalhead" researcher in Paula Rowe of the University of South Australia. She too is working on a more sociological perspective of metal culture, especially amongst youth. I am very much looking forward to our correspondences.

So this week has blurred with eyes wearied by frustration and angst - work has been sporadic and to top it all off - I lost my wallet! And my watch broke! All on the same day! Now I have to spend money I don't have (the last $25 in the entire world was in that wallet, may I say. Oh and ladies, I'm single.) to replace the cards I was probably never going to use anyway. Oh, the irony!

But throughout my thesis portion of the degree, I actively sought part time work (preferably, but not exclusively in my field) to gain an income. I have been rebuffed more often than not with the usual reason being "You're about to earn your Masters' degree - why would you stick around once it's done?" The Catch-22 is that I've not yet completed the qualification which bars me from most positions; yet the jobs that I require for immediate income take a pass on my application, citing the imminent attainment of said degree as the reason. As the father of Gestalt therapy says above - yes, this does feel like a nightmare.

I could labor on from the generosity of family and friends, but ever since youth, I prided myself on self-reliance. But does that mean not asking for help? As a man, it takes a lot of courage in today's society to admit defeat and ask for assistance, lest it "dilutes one's potency or manliness." Such are the hidden horrors of a displaced masculinity. (But more on that another time!)

So, to boost productivity and assess the relative worth of keeping up my social media accounts, I've taken yet another social media moratorium. Aside from my blogs etc. there's no Twitter and Facebook for at least another week. Beyond that, who knows?

People are shocked when I hint at the inherent impermanence of social media especially now it's embedded into our culture so silently and so totally. With so many yet to be discovered technologies that may "change the culture completely," why are we so preoccupied by convincing ourselves that social mediums such as these are the "big things?" At what point did Facebook become a mandatory extension of ourselves much like reading and writing? At what point did we let it? Why do people assume rules and social conventions exist for these mediums when we are the departure point of their enforcement? When these are completely new entities? When the method of interaction has changed? The more you think about it, the sillier it becomes - well, at least to me.

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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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