Substantial and Original – 1 of 2, or 3

As you have undoubtedly noticed, there has been a marked drop in quality and quantity of the content on this (and sister) site(s). You might have also noticed, there is clearly a lack of real-life-pertinent content, and just a whole lot of arbitrary filler material that, well, to put it mildly, is plain mediocre.

The problem here is not a lack of time or the lack of semi-interesting things to talk about. The problem here is not some new found disdain toward the idea of whining about my semi-mundane existence, while trying hard to inject some humour to make it palatable. The problem here is not some fear of an arbitrary stalker-type mad(wo)man.

The problem here seems to stem from a surprisingly hopeless disposition I seem to have gotten myself into, coupled with the fact that I see no way of getting myself out of this state any time soon. The details of this are hard to put down in words, but that hasn’t stopped me from seemingly-aimless blabbering before.

With that intro out of the way, let’s get on with things.

In case I haven’t made it clear enough already, I am in grad school pursuing a (bunch of) masters and a (bunch of) doctoral degrees. While some may argue that it is a trivial task conning universities into parting with degrees, they only succeed in utterly missing the point. The purpose of a prolonged stay in grad school (apart from the belief that the “work” one puts in at the time will result in major future payoffs) is to think of (/come up with/do/make/any other similar measure of intellectual contribution) something new and cool. If this weren’t clear enough being an unsaid rule, unis usually proceed to spell it out on the degree requirements for a PhD — “… substantial piece of work that presents and analyzes original contributions to the field …”. or something similar.

Crudely paraphrased, new, cool, and yes, worthy.

For some people I know, this really isn’t a rigid rule, and they tend to treat it more like a friendly guideline they’d like to follow, but can choose to ignore without any consequences. To put it bluntly, I’ve seen people getting away with doing… what could only be classified as a complete joke. Their “work” is neither original, substantial nor even particularly relevant. Therefore, it just ends up being something they spent some time on, voluntarily or otherwise. I openly mock such people every single day. Yes, I mock a lot of things (and people) but these are the sorts of people who perpetually remain near the top of my frequently mocked list.

And what’s my sudden problem you ask?

Alarmingly, I’ve begun to sense a tiny-but-ever-growing chance I might end up being one of them.

2 thoughts on “Substantial and Original – 1 of 2, or 3”

  1. My guess: You’re (getting a little impatient / experiencing symptoms of the same) with things around you.

  2. Impatient? Hah! Of what? I’m not in a hurry at all. For what end?

    Try very afraid. Very, very afraid. Of failure. My lax attitude when it comes to things “that are hard” is dwarfed by the extreme standards I hold myself to when I know I’m good at something.

    Greatness is the only possible outcome. Mere above-normalcy is tantamount to failure.

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