Writing never gets any easier, and it's debatable whether I've gotten any better at it. I make daily progress on my dissertation, though, which is feeling more and more like a credentialing hurdle than like the critical monument I envisioned for myself at the beginning. Will it delight? Will it instruct? Maybe. In Italy the question is whether writing is worth the opportunity cost. Sometimes the only way I can keep writing, in those increasingly frequent times when life offers so much that's way more interesting than my dissertation, is to realize this dissertation isn't the odyssey of the mind of the precocious man-child genius but is simply a job, and to know that like it or not, the job of the so-called intellectual or academic is still a job, with all the banality and travail of any other pursuit despite the fact that we all like to pretend that one of the perks of academe is that labor and leisure and love are three strands of the same precious braid. Well, today that braid is a hard hempy rope whipping me across the ass. The twist, the surprise is, though, that this is completely freeing and positive. Why pretend you're supposed to love to work?
I stepped out for a pair of espressos after completing a draft of an abstract for a spring conference.
Back to the dissertation.
Postscript: I wrote 111 words of my dissertation today and a 397 word abstract. So, 500 total. Rather weak. I gave up about an hour ago and went for a 6 mile run, which I've just returned from. Now begins the fun part of the day: It's into Venice for me for a concert at La Fenice. But first, a meal of Padova train station pizza, some of the best around. Seriously.
Not that the post necessarily admits this, but many of the “virtues” of labor are bourgeoisie lies! This post goes further by accepting this and simply going beyond it. It’s true: “Why pretend you're supposed to love to work?”
ReplyDeletethe postscript: it seems to valuate work primarily in light of the end product of producing 508 widgets/words. Seems too simple.
Who's the picture?
Intersting. The picture is Boris Pasternak.
ReplyDeleteI think valuing as a means to an end certain kinds of intellectual work that are couched as expressive can relieve one of the burden of having to love being at one's desk, rather than being idle.