Spinning Yarns

Several years ago, I had a small part in an amateur theatre production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Actually, I had several parts, as necessity is the mother of invention—but my main role was as Polonius, the advisor to the treacherous King Claudius. If this had been a production of Hamlet, Polonius would have been a fairly substantial rôle; but as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern only touches the events of Hamlet in a few carefully circumscribed scenes, my part was merely a moment or two amid the dizzying dialogue of the two baffled leads.

In some ways, I can identify with Polonius. He is educated and clever, after a fashion, though his cunning is a scholar’s ineffectual cunning rather than the sophisticated deviousness of a politician, and he is easily distracted by the dazzle of philosophy. He wants, above all, to do his best by his King and his family; but for all of that he is a man more of words than of substance, and in the end, he is little more than a footnote in the greater events that surround him. But whereas Polonius’s big problem is what to do about his conniving boss and the mad Prince of Denmark, mine is the more modest question of what to do about my as yet unfinished doctoral dissertation.

I have been putting off this question for some time now. Stripped down to its barest essentials, the choice I have to make is this: Should I accept a low-paying research fellowship, which will give me six months without teaching responsibilities to finish the Ph.D., or should I drop out of the program immediately, and go find a real job before my current teaching contract runs out in June. Everybody except me seems to see the first option as the obvious solution—but to me, that’s not at all a clear choice. As much as I despise indecision, I find myself trapped between this Scylla and Charybdis without a clear sense of what I should do.

The trouble is, I’m having a crisis of faith—specifically, faith in myself and my own abilities. Four years ago, if you’d asked me if I thought I had it in me to finish up my Ph.D., I’d have answered with an unqualified “yes.” Today, I’m not even sure why they accepted me into graduate school, and I’m not convinced I can do it.

I went to graduate school because of my love for teaching, but now even if I do finish my degree, I’m not sure I want to have anything more to do with the academic world. I don’t think I have the right stuff. I still love teaching, but I’m not sure I’m cut out for it. And sweet Academe, that darling girl I always imagined shared my love of knowledge and learning? Turns out she’s completely uninterested in me: She’s got her eyes on some Captain of Industry who will buy her a big shiny rock, and build her a nice new library. Practical, and probably wise; but so much for dreams.

So, I’ve been putting off making this decision, but now I really have to make up my mind. In a sense, this question—finish or quit—has become a referendum on my belief in myself. I think it’s lost—but is it gone for good? Or is this just another one of those temporary setbacks we all face? The latter, I hope, though it sure doesn’t feel that way. Can you finish such a daunting task without believing in yourself? Sometimes I wish this were a more concrete task, like building a tower or climbing a mountain; at least then, I could see how much work is really left. And besides, I could use the exercise.

Polonius himself was made to say, “And this above all: To thine own self be true!” That, above all, is what I want to do. I’m just not sure how.

Maybe I’ll turn the decision over to the machine that won the war.

Filed by Michael at 16:28 under Academic, Personal
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