What it's like to Write a Dissertation; or, Overtaken by Fear; or, Anxiety on Descent; or, Crush Me Now, already, Please?

In "On Sad and Joyful Passions of Academia," Anthony writes:

I get that people are unhappy with their advisors, with the lack of support from the university, and from the seeming glacial pace of publishing ... But the complaints, especially from those fully funded at institutions I would imagine are very exciting, foster a different sad passion within me.  They even foster a kind of resentment that they have been given this opportunity while I have to scratch out a future ... yet they seem to enjoy nothing about academic work.

The best way to talk about academic work is baseball.  This goes without saying. 

I played third base and shortstop.  I played them well.  I had sure hands and quick feet.  When the ball screamed off the bat, there was no time to think.  There was only time to react. 

Move the quick feet.  Catch with sure hands.  Throw the ball. 

In between pitches, I would look to the man to my left to make sure we knew our assignments.  Then the ball would leave the pitcher's hand.  Then the batter would swing. 

Move the quick feet.  Catch with sure hands.  Throw the ball.

In the infield I felt like part of a team.  I could look to my left and catch the second baseman's eye.  I could look across the diamond and catch the first baseman's eye.  I was a player among players.  We all knew how to react and how to react together. 

Then one year my coach wanted me to play center field.  Being a team player, I consented.  I'd shagged flies during practice, and was better than most at going back on a ball.  So why not?

I left the dugout and jogged past my teammates.  Then I kept jogging until my teammates looked like toy soldiers.

I stood there.  I was still playing baseball.  Only alone.  Three hundred and ninety feet from home plate.  Two hundred feet from anybody else. 

Short screaming or semaphore, I couldn't catch anyone's attention.  I was alone. 

See home plate in the shot above?  No?  Click on the picture to enlarge it.  See it now?  Focus your attention on the tiny white dot near dead center.  There's another to its right.  Either will work.  Zoom in on them.  Those tiny dots are twice the size of a man's head. 

Now imagine something an eighth that size come shooting from the crowd. 

You track the ball.  You run intuitive quadratic models.  You run where you think it will land.  You compensate for drag.  The wind blows it to the left. 

You run intuitive quadratic models.  You compensate for drag. 

Or the right. 

You run intuitive quadratic models.  You compensate for drag.

Or further behind you. 

You run intuitive quadratic models.  You compensate for drag.

You adjust course.  You adjust speed.  All the while you track the ball.  All the while you calculate.  The ball hangs in the air for seconds.  You spend every last one of them calculating. 

This is not about reaction. 

This is not about moving the quick feet.  This is not about catching with sure hands.  This is different.

And you are alone.

And everyone is watching you. 

All eyes follow your eyes following the ball.  You feel them.  The weight of them.  They're relying on you to know how wide and fast to stride.  They trust the calculations you've made.  They trust in the ones you will.  Sometimes that trust is well-placed. 

Sometimes not.

Writing a dissertation is like playing center field: 

Your eyes light on something small launched at an incredible distance.  Time slows.  You calculate where it will land.  You compensate for drag.  You track it as it flies.  While sprinting.  You adjust your course. 

You are alone.  Everyone is watching you.

Fear overtakes you.  You will lose the ball in the lights.  You will lose the ball in the high glare of a slate sky.  You will trip.  You will stumble.  You will fail.

You compose yourself.  While tracking.  While sprinting.  Your chest hurts.  Your legs ache.  Then:

The satisfying recoil. 

You close your glove around the ball.  You gather your wits.  You throw the ball back to the infield. 

Writing a dissertation is like playing center field with one difference:

No satisfying recoil. 

The fear is there.  As are the calculations.  And the gasping.  And the aching.   Sometimes you exhilarate in your own breathless grace.  Certainly.  And sometimes you admire the ball descending its clean arc.  Of course.  But:

There is no satisfying recoil.  There is no salutary smack of ball on leather.  Not yet. 

You are the outfielder problem (Chapman, 1968; Dienes & McLeod, 1993; McBeath, 1990; McLeod & Dienes, 1993, 1996; Montagne, Laurent, & Durey, 1998; Oudejans, Michaels, Bakker, & Davids, 1999; Todd, 1981). 

You await your solution.  But:

You're still playing baseball.  You're still having fun.  But:

You are unsolved and you are surly. 

I know I am.

BONUS (5 POINTS): How do Scott's career anxieties manifest in dream?

Comments

[Sisyphus]

Yes. Just --- yes.

[SEK]

Thanks. I've had this half-written for eons, but never had the guts to publish it before, as it betrays far too many layers of geek ... and a love for Steinian prose. Damn thing read like a prose poem for months, but now, well, I may have found a balance. It's rare that I labor this much on a post -- I can only think of two others, actually. But I wanted to get it right, to communicate to those who never shagged a fly what it was like, and how what that's like is what writing a dissertation is like. In other words, I managed to muster anxiety about communicating anxiety, a feat for which I should be meta-proud.

[Ahistoricality]

Yes.

Everything else aside, ending it with academic citations is most perfect.

[Sisyphus]

Well, I feel better then, if you labored over it. I was reading it going damn, I don't know shit about baseball and yet this works perfectly as an image for finishing courses and going ABD. But mostly I was noticing that you kept everything in and left all the words out, which I can't really do (check the word count of my latest post to this one arrrgh). Doesn't really feel Steinian though. The pictures though ---- the pictures almost do it on their own.

[The Constructivist]

Wow. (As a former pitcher, shortstop, secon baseman, I'm with you that the infield rules.) No wonder you don't like golf. But that's what an academic career is like. Now there's an idea for a post....

[Karl Steel]

Could you explain baseball with metaphor derived from dissertatin?

[September Blue]

Yes, exactly. I know nothing about baseball either, but this rings so true.

(My writing woes turn into Tetris in my dreams. It's supposed to be fun, but then there's all these pieces falling faster and faster... etc.)

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Obviously in the post I made it clear I understand why academia foster sad passions, but isn't this whole "I'm so alone" business really a fantasy? You obviously have a lot of people who are supportive and in the same boat here. Also, if it is as bleak as you make it here, with all the work of baseball (does baseball require much work? I'm not very sporty) and none of the satisfaction, why do you do it?

[Wally]

Anthony -

As a former baseball player/lover(?!) and wastohavebeen academic, lemme add a small thing to Scott's glorious post: before each inning, the outfielders do two, three minutes of warmup tosses - center-fielder and one of the other two, then the third and some benchwarmer. This is a moment for solidarity, a very literal 'friendly back-and-forth.' Then the pitcher finishes his five warmup pitches and everyone turns toward the plate (literally every person on the field is turned toward home plate, even the batter strictly speaking).

The outfield really is that lonely - everyone's around you, you're watching everyone, but the outs are largely made in the infield - your job is always to get the ball as quickly as possible to the civilized part of the field. I mean for God's sake it's the 'outfield' and the 'infield'! You do throw it to someone, whose main work is telling you where to aim it and berating you when you fuck up, cheering when you lay out for a difficult catch...

...but you catch every ball utterly alone. Unless you're crashing into the goddamn leftfielder. Which is to say, you have strong connections, none of which are considered when you judge the success or failure of your main activity, which is this disconnected distant thing of catching fly balls. The institutional structures are there for you in theory, but you can't do your job without this invisibility - the thing that makes it hardest, paradoxically, to do that job. You're built for it or you're not, and the institutions are built for those who're built for them.

Which OK maybe it's too early for blog comments but that reminds me of academia somewhat.

[Sisyphus]

To add to what Wally said --- if you're doing your job, ie writing, you're alone. If you are surrounded by loving and supportive companionship ---- teammates tossing warmups, cohort-members tossing back drinks, random fellow internet bloggers tossing back and forth quips ---- you are not working. Not right then.

And with that, I think I need to shut down my connection and try to revise some crap into a paper.

[SEK]

Anthony, I think Wally nails it -- esp. as regards the market, which in my head resembles nothing so much as outfielders colliding now -- but the fact of the matter is, despite the fear and solitude and ache, I still loved playing baseball. That's implicit in the piece, esp. if you haven't played, but there's real gloriousness in playing the game, despite (or, perhaps, because) of the fear and solitude and ache. I do it because I love it despite itself. (Or themselves, dissertation and baseball.)

[The Constructivist]

It is begun. And remember, you started this. Or Anthony did. The key point is, I didn't.

[rm]

Of course it's hard. It's the hard that makes it great.

Now, if only one could be paid for it. I am paid, but I am really paid for seeding the field, painting the lines, running the concession stand in between innings. I get to play baseball in my spare time after those other duties are completed.

[The Constructivist]

Idle question, did you have a John Fogarty song playing at any time during the composition of this post?

[Bob]

Beautiful piece. Thanks for this. As someone who recently finished a dissertation on, in fact, baseball, I can say that the satisfying recoil--the feeling you get when you casually throw the ball back toward the infield while jogging to your dugout after catching the third out of the inning, particularly the ninth inning--comes with the beer you drink and dinner you eat with your friends, family, and committee after your defense. Then, even if for just a fleeting evening, infield converges with outfield, the individual becomes part of a team again, and victory is celebrated.