Suck it Up or _____ it Up

A very long time ago, i mentioned that Rousseau said something like 'Put a young man in a workshop, his hands will work to the benefit of his brain, and he will become a philosopher while thinking himself only a craftsman.' It's something i think about at least weekly. Now, i just want to warn anyone reading this that this is more of a personal post. Anyway, i learnt a valuable lesson through my woodworking that i really hope will translate into my other work habits; my progress on the doctorate. I have noticed that these habits are one in the same, as i am the same person when i do both. Simple enough. The doctorate, or at least writing the doctorate has been a real challenge. I keep wanting to recheck my notes, to downplay the risks i am taking in some of the ideas i set forth. The well-known expression in the woodworking world 'measure twice, cut once' was something i seemed (i am writing in past tense because i hope to leave this behind) to take to the extreme. And i noticed i had the same issue of avoidance or fear with my woodworking. I have wanted to build for myself a proper workbench at which i could really perfect my craft. One's work can only turn out so well when one must assume contorted positions on the floor or kitchen counter in order to stabilise workpieces. So i obviously bought the Schwarz's book on workbenches and resolved to make myself the 18th century French workbench, known by the name of its designer, Roubo (pictured).Of course, i went over and over and over the book, debated on the lumber to order, the dimensions, etc. It took a lot of energy. Finally i took the plunge and ordered the wood. I was very happy!

Then the wood had to acclimate to my house and i flew to the States to visit my family. When i returned, i was struck with fear. Oh, crap. There's a giant pile of wood in my house. How am i going to dimension all the lumber for the top with only hand tools and no workbench?! What if i mess this up? It's going to be so much money and time wasted and i will be stuck with all this messed up lumber! So i let it sit for a while. And then a little more. Wow--the lumber is for sure acclimated to my house now! Last week, i decided to just go for it. The situation was beginning to look a bit ridiculous. I decided to glue up the top to the best of my limited abilities, and i would just deal with gaps, should they form. There's always epoxy. I took the plunge and glued up the top. To those of you reading who don't know about woodworking, glue-ups are the most stressful aspect of projects. But, i had forced myself the point of just not caring anymore. F-it. How bad can it turn out? I just want the wood off my floor! So i glued it up--in sections, over a few days, and i am pleased (and still surprised) to say that it turned out pretty ok. It's not perfect, but it wasn't as bad as i feared, and now i am well on my way to my goal, and i feel emboldened. I think the same attitude can be put towards academics. I am definitely at the point where i am saying F-it. How bad can it turn out? But i think there's a lesson here. Either suck it up, or you will f- it up. In other words, your best effort may fall short of perfection (God forbid!), but it will not be as bad as being stuck with loads of lumber on your floor or loads of notes and unfinished chapter drafts. As you can see, my bench top needs some work, but at least i have something to work on:

'Nerd Alert':The Job Market, the Economy, and What to Do with a PhD: 'It's all Gobbledygook to me'

A few months ago, i came across an op-ed called 'The End of the University as We Know It', by Mark Taylor, the Chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. Click the title of this entry to read it. It's pretty depressing. Here is a little preview:

young people enroll in graduate programs, work hard for subsistence pay and assume huge debt burdens, all because of the illusory promise of faculty appointments. But their economical presence, coupled with the intransigence of tenure, ensures that there will always be too many candidates for too few openings.

To balance that out a bit, click here. About a month before this article came out, Will Ferrell starred in his own Broadway play called You're Welcome America--A Final Night With George W Bush--basically an extended reprisal of his SNL character mocking Dubya. I didn't watch the whole thing, but i did see the segment about Bush giving clever nicknames on the spot to members of the audience based on their occupations. At 2 minutes into the segment, a Shakespeare scholar (and it looks like Edward Norton is sitting next to her...) is called upon, and gets the longest commentary on her job:

Hmm. That reminds me of part of the article:

Each academic becomes the trustee not of a branch of the sciences, but of limited knowledge that all too often is irrelevant for genuinely important problems. A colleague recently boasted to me that his best student was doing his dissertation on how the medieval theologian Duns Scotus used citations.

For real? How Duns Scotus used citations?! That does seem like an 'unnecessary subject.' And if, as Taylor claims, the Academy is churning out more of us than can get jobs and there's no guarantee of us getting a seat next to Edward Norton, well that's really disheartening.