Well this post is a long time coming. As such, it will really be three posts rolled into one. The first two will be some stories I want to share, and the third a bit of background on what brought on those last two posts I made about a week ago. So without further ado:
(Maker, why did I say three posts, so I have to make up three titles now? Ok, um, let's call this one....)
This is how I write when I'm running out of time...
Very original, I know. This post was going to be the only one, and so have the full title listed above, but I've been meaning to make more posts. Anyway.
So the thing which "triggered", if you will, those last few posts was an unfortunate situation which I put myself in via laziness. So the way the BPhil works, I am supposed to have two supervisory sessions per term and write an essay for each. This is NOT a lot of work - that's FOUR WEEKS for each essay. Supposedly, these would not be the only things I would be working on, but I would have some independent work as well, which is how you fulfill the at-least-5 topics requirement even though you only meet about 2 subjects. But if you think that I did anything besides the minimum requirements than I shamefully must point out that you don't know me very well.
Anyway between this term and last (4 essays) I need to turn in 2 for real (for grades). The first essay I wrote this term turned out pretty good, so I've been editing it, along with one of the essays I wrote last term, in the hopes of submitting them. That's all fine and dandy, but because I already had my 2 "real" essays I kind of forgot that I was supposed to be writing one more for my supervisory meeting.
So then it was 8th week. As in, last day of class, you should be pretty much done with that essay by now because you've had like 4 weeks to write it.
But I didn't even have a topic.
I had been vaguely worried about this but kind of trying to roll with it, until I talked to my supervisor after class and basically said "yeah so about that essay... I kind of haven't started yet." She was super nice and took it well and just kind of said "oh ok why don't you email me and we'll figure out a time to meet in 9th week". But something about the situation struck me hard.
I felt really ashamed for letting this happen - not only for trapping myself in a situation like this, not just for the negative side effect, but rather for the extreme waste that the whole thing was. I really like my supervisor, it's been a great blessing and an honor to work with her and to have her help. And somehow, through my sheer laziness, lack of motivation, whatever it is, I felt like I had completely wasted it. Thrown it away. Because I knew that even if I worked for 5 days straight before we met on this essay, it wouldn't be good. I mean it didn't need to be, but suddenly, right when it was too late, I suddently wanted it to be. I don't know that I can even say why - it certainly wasn't a sudden rush of love for the topic to which I must do justice (I wish it was) - it was more like a need to prove myself, to myself perhaps, or to prove my gratitude or something. It was odd.
In any case, I took Wednesday off but y'all have all heard that story. Friday, Sunday, and Monday I spent as much time as I could in the library working hard on this paper. (Saturday I went with the rugby girls to go watch the women's England v Wales game in the 6 Nations tournament! It was great.) The problem was, every single day I completely switched my topic.
So before I talked to my supervisor I tried to do a bit of brainsotrming. I basically said what is one text which I love but haven't written on? I chose Plato's Apology, because I like Socrates. Originally I was looking into the conflict of civil obedience to an unjust government/judgement/command. But every time I had an idea I found a great article saying EXACTLY that, and realised that if I tried to, I would spend 98% of my essay just quoting this article. Then I switched to Socrates' beliefs about the gods, but that just turned into a laundry list of things which he said.
I had told myself that, no matter what it looked like, on Tuesday at noon I WOULD email my draft to my supervisor. This boded ill on Monday night when I have about 2500 words of "blah". Then around 9am on Tuesday morning I suddenly had an idea (in the bathroom of course, where all good ideas come to you). I rushed back to the library and in the span of 3 hours, I had completely re-written the essay (using bits and pieces of my 4 previous drafts). I can't say it was a GOOD essay, but I suppose we've answered one question: This is how I write when I'm running out of time.
And more importantly, I got it done. But the feeling/knowledge that I wasted a lot of opportunity by doing this remains.
Back with the humanities.
Time for post 2: my weekend. Well, my yesterday.
I spent yesterday at the Developing a Christian Mind conference here at Oxford. I had originally signed up to be in the Theology/Philosophy section, but I chose to skip that and go to all of the Humanitites sections instead because... let me phrase this as it's own complait actually...
Ok so I have a huge problem with this set up. This Theo/Phil as appart from the Humanities set up. This problem has several aspects, 1.) EVERY time that a Christian group does a "theology/philosophy" group it is NOT a theology/philosophy group. It is actually a Theology group with a capital T who they've invited the philosophers too because philosophy is actually just theology anyway isn't it? Let's just pretend that everyone in both departments is actually going to be in church ministry eventually because what else would you do?.... Ok. That was unfair of me. Because I did not attend the theo/phil part of this particular conference I should not be saying all of this. I'm sorry. I should not speak so generally and aim at a specific conference of which I don't know. But as a general claim, do you feel me? This has happened to me before, and it's SUPER annoying. Like YES I like theology, but I am NOT trying to be a career theologian or a church minister, and please not acting like either a.) I am or b) I should. 2.) Philosophy is just as much part of the humanities, or the sciences, or the social sciences, as it is in theology. Seriously. I know that most areas of study would say "You didn't give philosophy a section!" and complain at being left out. I am here to do the opposite: please stop trying to tell me that philosophy is only part of theology and not a part of other areas. Philosophy is a huge spread. We do have theologians, but also physicists, ethicists, and people like me who want to study things like literature etc.
Ok I'm sorry, rant over. The fact of the matter is, the DCM conference was REALLY REALLY good, and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone involved (sorry for that rant, as I said it's a more general complaint I'm sorry I aimed it at you). The humanities section had two lectures and two discussion sections and all four were really good and im very glad that I got to be a part of them.
The first lecture examined modern portrayals of freedom through a novel ("Freedom") and a film ("Up in the Air") neither of which I have seen/read (but the presenter did a great job explaining). It pointed out how modern fiction has seen the darkness and disorder which comes from the oft-coveted idea of freedom and self reliance, and also spoke about how we as Christians may view this conflict and react to it. It was really good, and addressed our relation to darkness in fiction well.
The second was about Dante's
Purgatory, and let me tell you, I NEED to re-read that book. I read it (ok I "read" it) in HS, but at the time I think I was far far too young to appreciate any of it - I found it boring and repetitive. The presenter gave a great, broad yet detailed overview of the work, and brought out its themes of humilty, progress, love, and freedom - it was interesting how well this idea of Christian freedom via the reordering of love answered the earlier presentation of human freedom resulting in disorder.
So yes both were very good. Then in the discussion times they had a total of 6 panelist share their stories of how they came to where they are in their studies, their experiences and struggles, and we just kind of talked and shared advice about that kind of thing. It was great to be in that community of people. I really wish I had gotten more people's names etc to stay in touch.
Ok I don't mean to wind this down so fast, but that last paragraph is a good transition into the last section of this post - let me wind up the DCM conversation by saying that they/New College served us AMAZING food. It was so good... Ok last post:
Let's back up a bit.
Ok so I told a few of you who contacted me after those last few posts (thanks btw) that I would be writing a post soon giving some background to all of that, and just laying out some general struggles I have been having lately.
The shortest way to say this sounds really depressing: I feel lonely and dead inside.
Ok wow that was dramatic. Obviously I've been really up and down about this - I do have lot of good days and some really great days. But somehow, even on these great days (like yesterday at the conference) I also often tend to have some form of existential crisis... just about every day. Especially in the evening/morning. Here are some of the issues spelled out in a less dramatic fashion:
1.) Making friends is hard. Like really hard. It's never been this hard before. Is it the British? Is it Oxford? it is Gradschool? it is me? I don't know. And let me distinguish: I do not mean that it's hard to meet people. I know a LOT of people. I know the Wycliffe students, the Philosophy students, I know St. Aldates people, I know the Rugby girls, I know the Tolkien club - I could go on. There are a LOT of good people I know. But often I still feel like I have very few actual friends - and practically no one whom I feel really relaxed around - in the nothing-to-prove kind of way. Some of the postgrads at St. Aldates are the few exceptions to this (I've talked to at least two of you about this - thank you). But still I think it's just - I had SUCH a strong friend group - ok more like 3-4 strong friend groups at JBU. I had people whom I could just walk into thier room when they weren't even there and crash on their bed watching TV and wait until they got home. I had people whom I could call up any time and say "what time are you going to dinner?" or "you wanna go on a walk?". Around here? Most of the people I know, I know for a reason, and it feels like with most of them I don't have a "right" to know them in any other way - like the rugby girls? They are great but I only ever see/talk to them in the context of rugby. The Phil students? I only ever see them in the context of philosophy. I've been to the pub with them a few times, but even then there just feels like a kind of "have to prove myself" kind of pressure. I think each of us had expectations of what it means to be a philosophy student at Oxford and we are all kind of trying to prove to each other that we meet that standard. I don't know. Even the Wycliffe students, who I love, most of the conversations I have with them consist in three topics 1.) "how are you?" 2.) "what are you working on?" or 3.) "how's rugby/your knee?". Now don't get me wrong, all three of these are valid topics and thank you for asking. BUT these rather professional topics are not what forge friendships. They are what keep us on the surface. Because of that I have recently become REALLY, probably irrationally, annoyed with the question "how are you?" And like, not even in the normal way of disliking the societal trend of saying "I'm fine" when that's a lie. At this point its gotten to the point where I don't like the question because I'm tired of answering it. When people ask me that I generally try to give an actual reply, but it's gotten to the point where it feels like 50% of my life consists in telling other people about my life. It's one of the reasons I made this blog - so I could say all of this once and then not have to repeat it 10 times. I am really tired of having 90% of my conversations being taken up by my own giving a report of my life - I lived it, please stop asking me to recount it all for you. Along with that of course is the darker reason that my resistance to recounting isn't merely a resistence to repetition but just the fact that I already spend all of my alone time (there is a lot) trapped in my own mind/feelings, please stop asking me to spend more time in my own head for you. I've taken to texting my friends back home and basically saying "please let's talk about something that's NOT ME".
Ok that was a really long first reason sorry, time for the scary one though:
2.) I feel dead inside. There I said it. Several times in the past 3 weeks or so I have had these experiences where it's like God is giving me the perfect opportunity to wake up - through church, through the DCM, through other things - he's giving me an experience that I intellectually recognize as "wow this is exactly what I needed to hear. I identify so much with this. It's good to hear from someone else. What they are saying is exactly right and I needed to hear it." But somehow, the emotional response that by all rights should be there just ISNT.
It's like I can talk for ages about the reasons why I ought to feel a certain way but the fact is I DONT. I don't feel anything, except I suppose a tiredness and a worry about the fact that I don't feel these things.
Like I said, it's stop and go. Occasionally I've gotten really excited/happy about things. Like the 6 Nations game, or like my upcoming trip (oh man I really need to do my laundry). And I've had normal days - when I'm around other people I feel normal. I'm even having a friend from church over to watch a film this week.
But somehow, when these normal days are over - when I'm back in my room and I'm alone, or when I'm trying to get work done - it's like all passion and all normal enthusiasm leaves.
I wanted my Masters to be a labor of love. I have all of these reasons in my head that I used to believe so strongly and tell others about why I love philosophy and why I'm here.
It's almost like the cord that ought to be connecting my head and my heart has been severed. And each side still has some connection to my hands, but they fight a lot, and so I barely get any work done, and I worry about the quality of that work. But I'm running out of time.
Every time I talk to someone about this they basically say "Then quit." (If you've said this, know that you're not the only one who has, there are like 4 of you) and my immediate gut reaction is "I can't." for reasons I've repeated over and over: Because I and others have already given up so much, I've dedicated, I'm not going back on my work. I am not going to fail. Because quitting feels like cowardice. And possibly most importantly: Because what else would I do?? I don't want to go back to being a cashier (no offence, cashiers, y'all are stronger than anyone knows, I'm just not). And honestly it feels like... Studying philosophy at Oxford was like a dream. If THIS isn't a labor of love, what could ever be one?
When I talk like that I get worried - is this me falling into the same trap which I point out in things like non-christian fiction? The trap of trying to find fulfillment in worldly achievement or work? I don't know. Maybe it is. If it is - how do I stop?
Several of you have encouraged me to pray about this. I thank you. You are right, and I need your insistent voices in my lives. I'm sorry if I get annoyed at you - it is my annoyance that tells me that you are right. But at this point? After 22 years of Christian education and countless hours in Bible studies and small groups and summer camps and church services and lecture, I'm still not sure I actually know how to pray. It's like every time I try I have nothing to say, and my mind fills with "noise" - the kind of static which seems to block all thought and take up all room in your mind and echo in the emptiness at the same time. Not even specific distractions which you can consciously try to set aside. I don't know what to pray anymore, and I don't know how.
I lost faith in myself a long time ago. Not in some christian give-up-yourself kind of way, in a much more hopeless kind of way. The kind of giving up that makes me never want to promise anything because I know somehow like a dark prophesy that I will break that promise. I've given up faith that I have the capacity to respond appropriately to God's call, be it big or small. I can tell you - as a matter of fact - about scripture's promise that sin has no power over me anymore, and that Christ will finish the work in my which he started. But like everything else, these are facts I know, but don't seem to affect me or my thinking. And I don't know how to get them to that point.
I am really sorry that this is all happening now - I don't want this all to be going on right before this big exciting trip with my parents and sister. I don't want to be dealing with this during our trip and I don't want my family worrying about it. But I had to say all of this.
Today is another day where I had a lot of trouble getting out of bed, and now that I'm out, all I want to do is go back. I need to do laundry and clean and do some editing. More than that, I need to get excited about this trip. It's worth it. I don't want to do it an injustice, as I have so many other opportunities.
Thanks as always for reading. Especially this three-headed monster post. (I should retitle it Cerberus). Then maybe in a few years whenever all of this is a memory I could say I had completed something herculean.
I just want to love things that I love again. And I want to stop worrying. And I want to stop this vicious up and down.
Priase God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below, prais eHim above yea heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
