Bob Log #23: Third Term

Life Shit

My Spring break concluded, and I returned to Essex yesterday morning. Jet lag plus my my usual shitty sleep have resulted in being wide awake since midnight. I may try to catch a nap after I post this, or maybe I'll just attempt to stay awake through the day. It's already starting to get light out- the only benefit I can think of that British weather offers this time of year is the long days. It'll be light out till nine at night. By late June it'll stretch from 4 to 10.

I'll be spending all of today and tomorrow hammering out papers due Tuesday morning. After that, save a handful of meetings with advisers and a presentation on the 23rd, my schedule is wide open. I don't know how long I'm going to be here this term. I might go home as early as mid-June, or I might stay till mid-July. A date in between is most likely. This all depends on how much work I get done here, how much the success of my dissertation depends on its craft being done here, and honestly when I simply feel the need to go home. This also may be the last term I live here, if I go ahead with the long-distance scheme with the PhD.

I've been wrestling with whether or not I want to do that. If you put a gun to my head I'd say yes, I'd rather do it long-distance and start a modest career of some sort at home while I write. Does that me a coward? Am I just homesick? Would I regret such a decision? After much cogitating I am fairly confident my answer to all those questions is "no." I don't think it has anything to do with fear of failure or lack of self-worth. I'm ambitious. Rather, instinctively I'm trying to find the most optimal situation for me to produce shit, which is the source of my ambition. One of the foremost reasons I came to University of Essex was because I knew it would be the best school to get a respectable doctorate while it would also grant me considerable latitude in terms of what I want to do or write. Instinctively I am always searching for more of that latitude, though I always do my best- believe it or not- to be mindful of customs and rules I still have to adhere to. My heart tells me doing the PhD long-distance is the best way of achieving the space I want. My heart has rarely let me down.

Logic has always been my potent antagonist though, and logic tells me that if I can't find the kind of job I'm looking for in the states, then doing the PhD here will be wiser. Additionally, long-distance PhDs are often 6 years instead of 3: I don't want it to take that much time. Fortunately I think I may be able to curb those rules.

If the PhD was my main passion, my conclusions here would be very different. At this point though I see the PhD as a task that ought to be completed to give my name greater authority when the time comes to circulate my thoughts. My future is not to be purely an academic, but I'm not fool enough to think the doctorate wouldn't be worth the trouble. Besides, it may also prove to be something to take pride in, and thus blend with my main passion: fiction writing.

What I have envisioned for three years or so now is that I might dabble in a number of topics and fields, and whatever subject I'd currently be engrossed in would be the subject of the story I wrote at that time.

With all this in mind, over the next few weeks I intend to:

1. Write my MA dissertation, or at least most of it.

2. Solidify my plans for the PhD.

3. Find jobs, either here or in the states, preferably in teaching or possibly campus administration.

4. Travel a few times.

5. Golf a few times.

6. Write everyday.

Just a sampling. Who knows what will pan out. I posted something on twitter the other day. I said: "Avoid having goals. They imply you want someone to give you a medal. Instead have obsessive passions. And don't give a shit about anything else."

Type Shit

I took a few type tests over break, which is something I haven't done in a few years. As usual I wound up testing as borderline extraverted/introverted, overwhelmingly intuitive, and a fairly strong perceiver. My thinking also tests fairly strong, but on tests that are more classically Jungian I also score very strong for Introverted Feeling.

Classical Jungian typology breaks down how people look and act upon the world in eight different styles called functions. Basically these functions work together and form the sixteen different personality types seen in the Jung-Myers-Keirsey kind of typologies. But whereas Myers and especially Keirsey place more emphasis on the actual type, the Jungians focus much more so on the individual functions themselves and how they interact with one another. So on one of these tests, it noted that I was very strong in Introverted Thinking as well as Intuition, it also said I harbored very strong Introverted Feeling.

I don't like going very in-depth to the functions, because quite frankly I don't think they really exist: they're just tools for describing aspects of the actual personality type (which I think is not just a tool and actually does physically exist). So when I'm talking about them here, keep in mind I'm doing it somewhat... in metaphor. That said I do think I use quite a bit of feeling, both extraverted and introverted. My extraverted feeling makes me very aware of others' moods, and it sometimes becomes crude and unconscious when it makes me wary of how others will perceive me. As I've grown older I've begun to use it more judiciously- I make contact with people when it's genuine, and otherwise I avoid it. But something corresponding to introverted feeling- deep convictions?- is also deeply ingrained with me. Or maybe it's more along the lines of introverted intuition- whatever it is, I have deep convictions about what's right, and what I want to do, and stubbornly follow through with them. This notion ties very neatly with the "Life Shit" discussion above. Whatever it is, I'm not sure if it as anything to do with my type as it does nurture. A friend of mine once said I have my father's intellect and my mom's convictions. There may be some truth in that.

Another type test- not from the Jungian line- once told me that I was a "Conductor" and good at troubleshooting. I didn't think that much of it at the time. But Essex has shown me the light of it.

I'm good at putting things together in a logical, smooth way that can also be very sincere. I think that's my most important gift in terms of writing. In terms of thinking though- in terms of debate, or philosophy, or science- At Essex I have confirmed that I am good at intuitively seeing what I call the "quality of logic" in something, whether it be an argument or a theory. And when this quality starts to break down, I see the inconsistencies this causes, apparently sooner than other people do. For instance, there is all sorts of inconsistencies surrounding Jung's notion of archetypes, and I think this is the cause for so much confusion and ineptitude in the Jungian community.

It's something my MA thesis should touch upon.