There's Nothing You Can Know That Isn't Known

I did drop out in the end.  I haven't been in full time 'corporate' employment for well over a year.  And I realised pretty quickly that I love being in university.  I love the sense of boundless possibility.  More books and journal articles than I could ever read. More great academics and students than I could ever interact with, societies I could ever join, courses I could ever take.  There is no upper bound to what your mind can accomplish.  That's true everywhere of course, but in university, at graduate level, it's pummelled into you constantly by the ever-growing gap between what you're supposed to have done and what you have done.  That can be incredibly stressful and sometimes manifest itself more in crippling inadequacy than in inspiration, but it's also kind of wonderful for really pushing me towards my potential in a way that work never has.  It makes me try.  I love university for that, even when it's sucking the life out of me, when its processes are unfair or inflexible and when my relationship with the educational system is tinged with disillusionment. Even in my hardest times (and even if The Beatles were right), there's always a personal reason to learn the next thing that needs to be learnt; it could take you anywhere.

Misplaced My Spark

Sorry this is a fragment.  It's an old unfinished post I found in my drafts.  Thought I would hit publish simply to record the thoughts.

It hasn't been a good few months for me. There have been highs, certainly, through achievements and positive experiences, and nothing terrible has happened. But on the whole it feels as though my life is not moving quite as fast as it should be. I feel terribly demoralised about my prospects of going to university, particularly on the funding front.

Various external issues at work have hindered my development there and everything just feels too difficult these days. I feel as though I am constantly starting again and really need to take a leap forward.  And yet, lack of progress is not for want of trying.. the constant starting again is my way of trying.  And it's hard too; shooting in the dark and not knowing whether it will lead anywhere but the same start sign.  Not knowing whether I am doing something fundamentally wrong or just refining my act.  Keeping up the belief that makes me keep trying.  That's the real problem these days; the belief is slipping away.

I guess I've just lost a bit of my spark. I hope I find it soon.

Types of Paper

It's been a while, hasn't it? Truth be told, I've been thinking of starting a new blog with a slightly different format/focus. I've also been contributing to another blog and that experience has given me some ideas on this, so I thought that once I figured that out I would start the new one and post the link here. But it is taking much longer than I'd planned just to decide on it, and in the meantime I've stopped my chronicling altogether, which really isn't a good thing for me.

So why is it so hard to think of what to write? Well, on one hand I would really like to write something with a wider scope - something that chronicles my life in general and not just the career-y part of it. It would also be freer in style and not be anonymous. I know that at surface level this sounds like a terrible idea; against every blogging guideline on theme and focus, completely unoriginal and even more self-indulgent than this blog. But hear me out.

Firstly I do this for myself, so the self-indulgence is justified. Also, I think I have reached a point where I want to practise presenting different types of material in different ways. I am developing all these skills in photography, video-editing, design and in combining different forms of media and I really want to use them. I often find myself wanting to write about experiences or share creations that wouldn't fit here.

But on the other hand, my life is filled with more dropout-related experiences than ever before and, whilst I would love to write about them, there are various complexities that surround this - a need for some degree of anonymity from a reputational & personal safety perspective, the impact that my actions have on others, etc. I tie myself in knots just thinking about it. So the issue is not just the standard writer's block of facing the blank page, but of deciding on the type of paper to use in the first place.

A friend of mine once told me that the blog posts she doesn't publish are the most important ones she writes, and I have certainly had similar experiences. In the end, I suspect I'll find a need and a mechanism for private reflection & analysis that complements a public one. But, for now, until I make time to draw the lines that determine what goes where, I'll be here.

"If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts"

I have a treat for you today. Here is a really really really good essay on solitude and leadership by William Deresiewicz. It's an intuitive idea, eloquently and powerfully delivered, delightful to read. Give yourself time to read it slowly - it's something to philosophise about on a Sunday afternoon, and not, as I discovered some short way into it, something to skim through while you're doing a hundred other things.

And here is a tiny bit of personal insight at the risk of ruining the essay for you (maybe read this later):

The idea that concentration and solitude is critical for strengthening your mind and character, and subsequently your interactions with others, is both one that makes inherent sense to me, and one that could quite easily be validated by my own experiences to date. And yet, I fall into almost all the traps quoted here every day, thinking that doing more, particularly quickly & simultaneously doing more, is what will help me achieve all my goals - reading one more article, going to one more lecture, filling in one more scholarship application, absorbing one more bit of the mass of information that I feel I am supposed to know. All of those things are important (in fact, that very attitude led me to read this essay), but not so important that I should do them at the expense of having a reasonable amount of time to reflect on it all and find my own ideas.

It's interesting how our lives can so easily diverge from our thoughts and ideals (sometime before I started this blog, I had the exact same thought about what work had become for me), even when presented with strikingly obvious clues. I am currently reading 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Nelson Mandela. If there is a book in the world that highlights the virtues of solitude - even the enforced and uncomfortable solitude found in prison - in enriching leadership, it is this one.

It’s not all regret and remorse though. I've cultivated a few good habits in this area, from Monday night yoga practice to writing as a form of reflection or even solitary travel. And I have cultivated them precisely because I could see the positive impact that this kind of thinking had on my life. I know many of the people I admire have found their own habits of concentration and solitude and reaped similar benefits. However, whilst these practices are meant to give me a minimum amount of time for myself, in reality I 'squeeze them in' so that they are in fact a maximum.

Maybe now, just before I start a new job and lose all the time that my unemployment has given me, I have an opportunity to refocus on myself and better align my day-to-day life with my personal philosophies.

"Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better"

I'm trying very hard to remember the wise words of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett.

The whole Columbia thing is just too hard. It's too much money. I've missed too many scholarship deadlines. I can't imagine a situation where I'll be able to get the funding together and I can't apply for something I can't imagine.

I am demoralised to the point of inactivity, which I can accept, especially if I look at it as a temporary state that I'll hopefully spring out of soon. But worse, I feel as though I am unbelievably close to giving up, and that is much less palatable.

So I am trying. Trying very hard to try again.

The Unknown Importance of Humility

In the spirit of this blog's name I am going to chronicle something merely to preserve an observation of myself; not one I particularly understand or admire or that so far has spouted any useful conclusions or advice, but simply one I feel is happening, or rather is happening again.

On Friday I was accepted into Columbia University's MIA programme. It was the only Masters programme I applied for and it was an extremely long shot for many reasons, the calibre and number of applicants that a university like Columbia attracts and my non-traditional background for the course being the most obvious. It wasn't particularly sensible to only apply to this programme, but that is how I work. All eggs. One very attractive basket. Simply being accepted should be a huge ego boost and relief that my gamble worked to some degree, and at times I do feel happiness and pride at having got this far and excitement at the prospect of going, with daydreams of first days in NY and on the campus, but this is not my overwhelming feeling.

I'd always said that the bigger struggle was not of getting accepted onto the programme but of securing funding - US universities definitely don't come cheap. And now that I have a place and therefore good reason to devote huge chunks of my time and headspace towards convincing the world to give me this phenomenal amount of money, I am more sure of that than ever. Sifting through hundreds of scholarship, fellowship and educational grant websites, that mostly tell me that I am ineligible or too late to apply, keeps my head firmly on the ground while so many people around me offer their excited congratulations and assurances.

Their encouragement and belief in me is invaluable and if I didn't share their confidence to a degree I wouldn't even apply for these things. But in moments like these, where some sudden and unlikely accomplishment is rewarded with further struggle (and further rewards), I mostly just feel very small. I feel more lucky than proud to have a place on the programme. I feel daunted by the hurdles I'll have to go through before I can accept it, and even more so by the ones I'll have to go through if I do make it there. I wonder how I'll overcome my disastrous organisation skills to get funding or a student visa, how I'll cope with essay-based assessment with my limited experience in this as a Mathematician, how I'll deal with moving to a new country or how I'll stack up against peers who have considerably more knowledge and training in this field than I do.

I don't feel discouraged. In fact, feeling a little undeserving and out of my depth only makes me want to work harder. I want to be good enough for the things I achieve or am hoping to achieve, even when I don't believe that I am yet. I don't know whether this kind of humility is a virtue or a hindrance. But good or bad, right or wrong, this is how I feel.

Tomorrow To Fresh Woods And Pastures New

I'm busier now than I was when I had a job, and honestly too zapped and overloaded with unstructured thoughts & feelings to write anything of substance here, but I thought it was time for an update.

I am on the waiting list for Columbia. It was nice not to be rejected, and I know there is still hope of going, but I am more dejected than I let on about the fact that this means I won't receive any Columbia funding even if I am later offered a place. I am especially dejected because everything I've learnt in the last few months has confirmed my interest in this area and given me material and experiences that would have made for a stronger application. Although I am incredibly grateful for my recent opportunities, I feel a little cheated on this one in terms of timing.

Life since the trip has been surreal and rewarding. I'm still unemployed and it has taken longer than I expected or planned to find a job, but I don't feel as bad about this as most people around me do. It's hard to when I am always doing really great things like making a video of our experience, giving a speech in parliament, attending amazing talks/events/exhibitions/documentary viewings/etc and having discussions with all kinds of interesting groups and inspiring people.

In many ways I feel I am developing the skills I wanted to develop, learning the things I wanted to learn, and working in the field in which I wanted to work. I'm just not being paid for any of it. I know I can't continue like this indefinitely, but for now I'm really happy to soak up this experience and throw myself into it, even if the more sensible thing to do is to step back from it and hammer harder at the banking job search. Not everyone in my life understands that, but some people do (my actor friends who know the value of working for free to develop their skills and build a portfolio deserve a special mention here) and they are really helpful in making me realise that I'm not completely crazy to just go where the wind or my instincts take me.