The New Draft Proposal Is Done

See? You thought I wasn't working. Well, I was! HA!

A Problem of Inspiration

This passage in Talal Amin’s essay “What Might an Anthropology of Secularism Look Like?” triggered a visceral emotional response in me:

Johann Sulzer, a theorist of the fine arts, wrote in more general terms: “All artists of any genius claim that from time to time they experience a state of extraordinary psychic intensity which makes work unusually easy, images arising without great effort and the best ideas flowing in such profusion as if they were the gift of some higher power. This is without doubt what is called inspiration. If an artist experiences this condition, his object appears to him in an unusual light; his genius, as if guided by a divine power, invents without effort, shaping his invention in the most suitable form without strain; the finest ideas and images occur unbidden in floods to the inspired poet; the orator judges with the greatest acumen, feels with the greatest intensity, and the strongest and most vividly expressive words rise to his tongue.” Such statements, Flaherty argues, are strongly reminiscent of accounts of shamanism—in this case of a shaman described not skeptically but in wonderment. They employ the idea of inspiration metaphorically—as control of an “instrument” from outside the person, or as a “gift” from a “higher power.” But these remain metaphors, covering an inability to explain a this-worldly phenomenon in natural terms.

My problem after multiple sclerosis is that I cannot have this experience as a writer. The experience of exaltation when one is flooded by imagination and converts that imagination into a structured, final product was my primary motivation to work. Charisma is the experience of exercising transformative, creative power. You have to see transformation and creativity in real time for it to be charisma.

The difficulty is not that I cannot be flooded with imagination anymore. That will still happen all the time if I don’t work to control it. The problem is that my organizational skills have been so badly compromised by the brain damage that I can’t keep up with an intense flow of imagination. I can’t organize the flood of images quickly enough to experience imagination as a high, because the high is the product not only of pseudo-religious awe at the flow of images flooding one’s consciousness, but also of mental power in processing it all. Instead, the result is distress. I’m still flooded with sight, but I can’t shape it effectively. Trying to do it in real time, I write disasters like the damned Lebanon paper.

The obvious solution is to let in less at a time and developing means of putting the pieces together slowly. The problem isn’t that the processor is bad (low intelligence) or the hard drive is bad (compromised long term memory problems, like Alzheimers), but that I’m running on too little memory (short-term recall problems) and simply can’t keep and manage all the images flooding into my conscious mind all at once.

The problem is that working on turning imagination into theory bit by bit just isn’t a high. Remember, I have to see the creative transformation in real time, i.e. “right before my eyes,” to experience that exalted high. If creative transformation happens incrementally, there’s no euphoria at all.

Is it any wonder I’m not getting anywhere?

	Teaching	Writing
Financial incentives	Regular if scanty pay at regular intervals when I teach.	The vague possibility of gainful employment without regular pay interruptions that seems to recede into an impossible to attain future.
Time constraints	Structured allotments (the course meets at regular times) with immediate selective incentives that force efficient use of off-schedule time (if I walk in unprepared I die of embarrassment). Top prioritization because I must teach to receive an income.	Chronic fatigue greatly reduces my “off schedule” time outside teaching and real life (funerals, doctor’s appointments, family crises, etc.) eats away at this time. Writing is consistently interrupted.
Pleasure in the work	Immediate high of watching the students experience new ideas they’ve never experienced before.	Slow boring of hard boards. Perspective erodes passion. Lack of self-confidence, as I can’t see the results happen in “real time.”

Scaling Back

The proposal writing is coming along. As with so much else in my life, survival requires scaling back. Although, for once, scaling back in this instance has nothing to do with multiple sclerosis. My imagination has always been too grandiose. Both in writing exam and essay questions for students and in framing my own research, I have tended to forget how quickly simple things placed in matrices become insanely complex. I’m not a very mathematical person. Naturally, I would need reminders that multiplication is not addition.

The old table was this—

—and the new table will be this:

This will reduce the case load from this—

—to this.

Needless to say, I’m not thrilled. I felt I had a whole theory before. But the fact that the new version feels “merely adequate” to me is probably a good sign. The case load looks far more manageable and far more likely to fit under 250 pages, which is the goal size for publication. The new proposal does not require Hebrew, which is definitely my weaker language. There’s no reason I can’t scan the sample needed for the cases I’m cutting. I may be able to incorporate them in the dissertation, or may be able to keep the material for later. This smaller version looks more fundable to me. And the bottom line is if I can’t haul my ass to Tel Aviv to get the sample and don’t get some time off from teaching, this dissertation isn’t happening.

I really want to graduate. I want a real job, one that pays all year long and with a decent salary.

Update

Grading was okay last week. I whipped through. I’m starting to re-write my proposal this weekend. Wish me luck.

Reconstructing/Lessons Learned

I learned a lot last term. Anyone who’s been reading can see that my life fell apart in Week 7 of the term. Craig and I went to Vegas for Nelly and Simon’s wedding (she was radiant, he was dashing and the ceremony was beautiful, I’ll write some about it on the other blog when I get a breather). I turned my grading back a weekend late (June 3, Week 10, not May 29, Week 9). Thursday I gave the kids a three-hour review. The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup that night. Saturday of Week 10 we had a lovely brunch at Jamie Mayerfeld, the course’s prof. I was so tired by that point, I didn’t even try to pick up any research that weekend. I slept most of it and helped Craig clean for the rest. The final exam was on Monday, June 9 and grades were due on Monday, June 16. “Ah!” you’re saying. Finally, the galaxy cuts Talal a scheduling break. No comments are needed for final exams and you have a whole week. Even with 68 of them, you ought to be fine.

Well, Monday June 9 was also the arrival date of my mother, my niece and my aunt (the reason we cleaned). I wasn’t done grading until about Thursday. The visit was absolutely wonderful, but a fortnight long. My aunt stayed only ten days, leaving Seattle on Thursday, June 19. Much to our shock, my beloved Auntie Char died in her home that night. There was a fire in her bedroom and she died of asphyxiation. Her body was cremated last week and I am flying to New York on Friday, July 4, to attend the memorial service on Saturday.

Real life, folks. As a multiple sclerotic in graduate school, it’s my biggest allergy. In terms of research progress, I’ve been out of commission for nearly a month. Real life events happen. The universe won’t go on hold just because my life is on hold writing my dissertation. I won’t get any work done over the weekend in Connecticut and New York and the next weekend, I’m grading again (wheee!) for the 26 students in Arab-Israeli. I get one weekend to do real work and then the next weekend, I grade for my other course (Global Ideologies at Antioch). That’s only eight or nine students, but they get rough drafts, so each assignment has full comments, then a grade sheet for the final draft. Certainly this is much less demanding than the 68 student load I had last term. We’ll see if I have learned to be more efficient over the past two terms and can crank these out quickly. Maybe I can squeeze research work in.

Although I’m thinking that I should postpone actual research (again) and work on grant proposals over the summer. I didn’t get that job at the McNair program I applied for, so grading will be a big part of my life next year. If I actually get a grant, I’ll have time to write. And I’ll have money to go to Tel Aviv and get my newspaper sample.

I dunno. Anyway, here’s what the month ahead looks like:

I'm beginning to realize that my previous value set has to be further revised beyond my initial expectations. In my previous life, I organized to achieve efficiency. I now have to accept that efficient work is patently impossible. I now have to organize to improve recovery after regular disruption. My previous standard was not getting derailed. Regular derailment is the new story of my life. I can, perhaps, ameliorate this problem, but I cannot solve it. I must accept that. The most I can achieve now is organizing to recover from regular derailment. Simply put, ordinary life is not going to go away. I'm going to go off track regularly. I need to become good at getting back on the track, with minimum time lost and reduced emotional cost in terms of frustration.

The difficult part is managing the process of acceptance. Working the way I work will simply never be inspiring or exciting. I do enjoy the work itself, but working this way does not offer much motivation and offers ample frustration. I need to figure out the motivation.

Fallen off the Wagon

Wow! The past two weeks have been a bad time for this blog as an ordering device. First week of grading, I was feeling under the weather. Aches, pains, slight fever here and there. Sinus headaches, no phlegm or post-nasal drip though. The next weekend Craig and I had to fly to Vegas for Nelly and Simon’s wedding. This weekend, I’ve been grading. Being a low-energy person with weak attention span means that it doesn’t take much to throw me off.

I’m already late returning my grading. I’ve made good progress this weekend, however, and hook or by crook, the papers go back on Tuesday. Then I can start thinking about Lebanon for a little while. My mom is visiting at the end of term, however, then I start Arab-Israeli again.

I’m getting a really clear picture about why my dissertation is going nowhere fast. I need to find a way out of teaching for a while. That’s easier said than done and I miss it when I’m not doing it, though.

Once More unto the Breach

In the morning, it all starts again. Gotta get some shut-eye.