I had started writing some mediocre poems during high school. Mediocre/stupid, in retrospect. At the time of writing them they were pretty good efforts. I could have possibly sent them to kids' supplements of news papers or some such magazines, and got some published. Never felt like. That in itself was no sin. But when parents or some enthusiastic relatives told new acquaintances that the chap writes good poetry, I would be hopelessly embarrassed. "What do you write poems about?" "Whaaat? Er.. well.. anything...". "Oh... where all are your poems published?" "Umm.. well.. actually I don't send them anywhere.. you know..", and so on. Soon they would 'discover' that "either the kid's poems are all rejected, or the kid and the parents are lying through their teeth". After a while I grew tired and stopped explaining. Whenever anyone asked I would just say, "Well.. no...nowhere." There would be a prompt consolation to the effect of "Keep trying until you succeed"!
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"Let me try some prose", I told myself a few years later. I wrote a bit, and good it was. At least then. This time, due to some favourable occurrences I got some 'success' even though I hardly put an effort. But then that wouldn't help you in answering questions. "What is the story?" "Whaddya mean?" "No.. the story.. what is it about?" Can you say, "Whaa.. you want a meta story? It's a story. A story. Read it."? You would rather, "Umm.. it's kind of modernist.. dilemmas.. meaning of rela..." "Hmm.. was it published anywhere?" "NO!". Well, actually this time I had a publication or two, but then it mattered only to the other guy, and that didn't matter to me.
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And here I am. Trying my hand at research in computer science. Heh. I know it's a sheer accident and all, but what's not? And this time I don't have a problem with explaining what my research is about and why I am doing it and so on. But then, "How many journal publications do you have?" "None yet" "Any conference?" "Umm.. yeah.. half a .. I was a second au.. actually a paper I wrote got rejected. Will be sending it somewhere else." "How many publications do you need to get a PhD?" "?! No ideaa..".
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You never graduate. The whole thing is a system of concentric circles. Each circle with the same configuration. You move up from one to the next and feel a deja vu. There is no escape. The only thing you can do is to stop taking yourself too seriously.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
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10 comments:
i agree with you that they are all concentric circles... and we keep sensing a deja vu at each circle...
but i would rather myself seriously, and not take the "hmmm.. how many publications.." guys too seriously.
erratum:
*but i would rather take myself seriously*
i had missed the word *take* in my earlier comment.
See..! This is why I wouldn't take myself too seriously.
what? i didn't get it.
i agreed with one point of yours and disagreed with another.
i couldn't see why you wudn't take yourself seriously.
It is like the existence-reality debates. No matter how well you try to describe reality, you still lie within existensial bounds. Your description would have simply been a bigger concentric circle.
The bigger and bigger concentric circles are a result of existensial constraints like survival. No matter how much we progress, we can never completely outsource survival. And we fall back into a bigger concentric circle.
And sometimes people become so shortsighted, they develop a tunnel vision within the circle. A former colleague of mine never asked people how their research were progressing; rather, how their publications were progressing. Well, it was a very pragmatic quesiton. You need publications if you need to retain your job, get tenure, get promotions, get sponsorships, get awards, etc.
So true. Everything must be quantifiable - or else it seems to have no importance to most people.
The only thing I can seem to quantify is the number of hours I loiter around in a day.
"Hhmmm.. how many hours?"
Neha, same here ;)
Boy...u are going thru 'quarter life crisis' ;-)
Anthro: I don't know. I feel I have quite past my half life period. :)
half life period...??? sounds like some element related radio activity.. Hope you will not disintegrate into sub elements.. and trouble the world :D
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