Sinister Resistance

Okay, so things feel like they’re getting right out of hand. It’s been on the slow burn for a month or two, but I’m totally starting to get backed-up into the same misery-hole that caused me a lot of grief around twelve months ago. It’s partly down to my less-than-stellar progress at work and partly down to massive feelings of low self-esteem; both of which encircle each other and spiral things right out of control. I recently tweeted a rather unsubtle cry for help, much of which was in an effort to understand who I really ‘am’, because somewhere along the line I think I’ve forgotten. I don’t know whether it’s the PhD that’s instigated these particular thoughts or not, but the documentation is being appended to the PhD Fraud series because I think it’s relevant.

Perhaps it’s the ever-approaching conclusion to the PhD journey that’s making me evaluate what sort of person I am, and what I want to be. Far from using this time to be reflective and figure out what I can do to make improvements to my life and where, it’s merely opened a whole can of self-doubt, self-criticism and self-loathing: it seems that whenever I’m face with difficulty or disappointments in my life, I turn that anger inward and blame myself rather than just getting on with fixing what’s wrong. Case in point: at the moment I feel like I’m some kind of repulsive, unattractive whale, but instead of doing something about either my looks or my weight, I turn the disgust inward and blame myself for not looking like Johnny Depp, or Davey Havok circa the video for ‘Beautiful Thieves’. What efforts I’ve made in the past to try and improve my appearance have invariably failed and left me in just the same situation of loathing my appearance, that I’ve kind of lost the energy to try any more. Self-confidence can have a massive impact on appearance, but when (almost) every day you look in the mirror and wish there was just some way of rearranging your face into anything else, you need a lot more of it than I have the capacity for.

I feel like I have zero motivation to  do anything right now, from pursuing my current work, to doing social things or even doing things I usually enjoy in my spare time. Right now, the only motivation for work is to just get it finished, but I sort of feel like I’m so far down the rabbit-hole that I currently have no idea where the end might actually be. I’m also finding it harder and harder to enjoy my hobbies and suchlike: I seem to have misplaced a lot of the passion that used to drive various aspects of my life, and I have zero energy to either try and track down where it’s gone missing or recoup some new passion from somewhere else. I can barely get myself fired up at all in the morning, and likewise when I get home: I’d just prefer to go to sleep (not that there’s been a lot of that recently) than to spend the free time socialising with friends or chilling out with a movie/video game and whatnot.

The outreach stuff I’m also doing is cool and taking my mind of the worries, but it only takes my mind off them but doesn’t eliminate them altogether. I’ve been putting off looking at a lot of my simulation results for a long time now, and recently came to the startling conclusion that it’s do-or-die time, and I desperately need to focus on that work because of the pressing need to publish results in journal papers and the final thesis. Over the past few weeks, I’ve managed to find other, equally-pressing things that I’ve needed to do and have focussed on those – however, that particular well has finally run dry and I don’t have anything legitimately important to otherwise do.  I need to hunker down to get intimate with the actual meat of my research, and it’s bloody terrifying because the time pressure alone is immense; let alone all of the other commitments that I’ve got going on with work this summer. I’ve also got a massive complex about the quality of my work and whether it’s to the standard that it should be at my stage of my career (hint: probably not), and feel almost perpetually on the edge of giving the whole thing up altogether and claiming defeat. That last comment may be exaggerated somewhat, but it’s perhaps not as far from the mark as you’d think.

I finally got round to submitting my first journal paper around a week or so ago, and was feeling relatively good about it (I’d just about got it into a state I was happy with), but heard this morning that it’s been rejected from the special issue I submitted. The editor did give pretty good feedback and suggested that the reason it was declined was not fault in the paper itself, but more that it didn’t quite fit with the aims of that particular issue: he indicated that if I fix a couple of things and submit to the regular journal, then it’d be in with a very strong shout of getting published, but it’s still a bit of a kick in the stomach for my mood levels. Current motivation for conducting research is rock-bottom as it is, without having further barriers being placed in the way such as journal rejections and whatnot. Even my leisure-time efforts seem to be met with just about as much success: musical proficiency doesn’t seem to be improving, friendships seem like they’re drifting away from me and maintaining a regular blog presence appears impossible.

So who am I? What makes ‘me’ me? At the moment, I’m having real trouble in pinning that down. I pretty much just feel like a huge, hulking ball of mass that’s actually no use to anyone and brings little joy to anyone else’s existence. Again, that might be a reactionary comment and slightly exaggerative, but ‘ball of mass’ is about as nondescript as I feel at the moment. Hopefully I can see out the rest of this week, struggle through the bits of work I need and then go on a week’s holiday to reset my circuits. Just feel epic low right now, and any assistance/encourage/feedback anyone can give is gratefully received. Dunno, maybe just a few kind words and a reminder of how awesome everyone is that’s around me might jolt my system into returning to a normal state; as it is, I’m floating in a most peculiar way.

[Zinar7]

I sometimes wonder what I’m doing, and where I want to go in life. By ‘sometimes’ I do, of course, mean ‘all the time’, and that’s largely because I have absolutely no idea at present. As I’m heading towards (potentially) the last 3-6 months of my PhD and then (potentially) the world at large, I’m currently left with a whole bunch of questions as to where I want to go with my career, and the inevitable questions about whether doing a PhD has/hasn’t helped toward that goal.

The role of research, at least in academia, is significantly blurred between that of Employment and Study. Sure, technically I’m still a student and studying for a higher qualification, but the manner by which I go about is more like a job: I’m not being taught, I’m learning by doing, in an office with my own PC to which I turn up to every morning and leave every evening. It’s very different from the surroundings I inhabited in my undergraduate studies: Primarily my own student room, and only occasionally working in a mixed computer room or the library. Certainly, the attitude I have towards it is that of ‘work’, not ‘study’; I’m working for the University on research, not studying to become a doctoral researcher. At least, that’s the mindset that I have towards my research.

In that respect, the term ‘job satisfaction’ has a somewhat confused meaning. Am I enjoying what I’m doing at the moment? It’s difficult to say that I enjoy what I do day-to-day, but slightly more easy to say that I tolerate it. Many students take up a PhD project to challenge themselves; others wrap them up in their research because they have a genuine passion for their field. Me? Well, I certainly came out of my degree with a certain fondness for the space industry: Having jumped aboard the astronautics bandwagon mid-way through my degree, it was definitely a subject that I found interesting; but not one that filled my passions, or which I was instigated to pursue in my spare time. I’ve even forgotten a lot of my undergraduate teaching, which leads to me consider myself something of a fraud when I say that I’m a ‘space systems engineer’. Certainly, when I compare myself to a true engineer with a grounded knowledge of the subject, I feel awfully naive and inexperienced. The potential for me heading into the real world into a ‘real’ engineering position is bloody scary. And, I’m not entirely sure it’s what I want to do.

Truth be told, what initial enthusiasm I had for my PhD topic has long since dissipated: One can only go down so many failed avenues of research before the passion to pursue them all begins to dissipate. I’ll still press on and (hopefully) get it done, but perhaps not with the relish that true job satisfaction brings. Some of the stuff that’s gotten me through the rough times is the extra-curricular work I’ve been doing: Teaching undergraduates, being involved in a lot of outreach activities for our department, and most recently, personal tutoring. Certainly the ‘outreach’ strain has eaten a lot of my time: In 2012 alone, I’ve been involved with taster days for young secondary-schoolers using simple experiments (with stuff like iPod Touches) to teach about space, the University’s ‘family’-based Science and Engineering Day, and the Research Roadshow that’s about halfway through its run and has further events at InTech Winchester, Cheltenham Science Festival and Bestival on the Isle of Wight. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both preparing for and running these events, and its refreshing to interact with a ‘new’ audience, attempting to encourage kids to get involved in science – I guess that somewhat hints at the ‘dream’ scenario I could take after my PhD: I’d love to be able to do that kind of thing full-time, but alas I fear no-one would be able to pay me to do it as a career.

If anything, my PhD has taught me that, while financial reasons are worthwhile enough in the short-term, I’m not sure if I could deal with a career which provides adequate monetary return but little job satisfaction. At least with a job, if things were truly not working out then you’d hand in your notice and find another. In the PhD regime, while it’s possible to drop out, change topic or study elsewhere, you feel far more the commitment to the three (or more) of study, and supervisor relationships, to take that as lightly. For me, I find that ‘satisfaction’ is the key motivator:  I certainly know when I’m in a rough spell, as I lose all motivation to keep going and fall prey to lethargy, procrastination and depression.   In the real world, you have the rest of the hierarchy around you ready to shape you up or ship you out, but in the lonelier world of academia and research, you’re more like your own ‘boss’ with only sporadic supervision, so problems can go unregulated: A lack of job satisfaction can therefore fester unmonitored for significant periods of time without being addressed, which can become an unwelcome feature in a job that can be, by definition of ‘research’, frustrating and intensely disheartening at times.

Perhaps my desire to leave research and head toward more straightforward roles is a reaction to that frustration; a need to have a more well-defined job where you know from month-to-month what you’re going to be doing, and that you’re (relatively) sure won’t veer off at a wild tangent at a moment’s notice. Or, perhaps, it’s just the comparative euphoria provided by my other activities that I’ve developed ‘grass-is-greener’ syndrome of pretty much everything else; when in reality everything is plighted by stress, anxiety and frustration. At the moment, I don’t know. Thoughts are (kind of) stirring in my head as to where to take this all once I’m finished with my PhD, but I’m not really in any rush to second-guess them before they’re ready. Certainly, while I’ve got a big ol’ Doctorate yet to finish and the prospect of a thesis to write, I’ve got just about enough on my plate as it is. Speaking of which, this post has gone on far too long, so I shall depart. Godspeed.

[Zinar7]