It's about TIME!

So, it has taken me a long while to write this dissertation. I mean, there was over 30 credits of classes, an exam, a take-home exam, some classes still to go on writing (go figure) and then there is a qualifying paper. And some could say that I've been dragging my heels a little (ahem..says a little shadow...a lot).

But go read this article: Now, I don't want to play the blame game but it figures that there might be more to this dissertation x infinity than just me, right. I mean, don't I have all the incentives to get out of here, like yesterday! Don't I want a job, don't I want to leave this miserable over-crowded state? So, why would I procrastinate?

It could be that the culture of my program pushes me to move much more slowly because the emphasis is not on finishing, its on perfection, self-discovery, illumination, and miraculous insight!

The problem, I think, centers on the humanities themselves. Humanities students and their professors see themselves as the last bastion against the crowd of capitalism, commercialism, and banality that will one day rise and eat up all of humanity so that nothing is left except empty soulless beings who like french fries.

Of course, this is to give ourselves too much credit. Often I feel the most soulful while picking a peach in an open field. Sometimes, it is simply when I wake up to a cool breeze and I see my husband curled up beside me. Often, I feel full of life and humanity when I look up into a blue sky and see the winds moving the clouds, I feel so small and so happy in those moments.

I will admit that I have some bias and I think that my study in the humanities gives me the disposition to reflect in these moments. It is philosophy, above all else, that has made me more calm and centered in my beliefs about the strangeness and inequality that I see in the world.

But we in the humanities cannot simply think that writing and reading books will offer the only prescription to societies woes.

I think what would be better if there were more students of the humanities working, living, breathing, teaching, and just plain MOVING in this wide world of ours! Of course, this means I still retain the humanistic bias that they are the best studies in the world and that they will make your life better, more good, and happier. But only, only if, you start writing that dissertation, get it done, and start being in the world.

And perhaps maybe I should take my own advice and then become a professor who tells her students the same.....