This is not what has bothered me. For the first, maybe the second, time I feel as if my supervisors know more than me about my topic. I spent the last week working on this damn sentence, so that I can send it along to my supervisors, who then get back to me within 12 hours only to have rewritten the sentence to make perfect sense, and proving to me that I am terrible at finding obvious logic and saying what I really mean. I think they are shining me on. "Oh sure, sounds like a GREAT topic. I wrote that book two years ago, but you go ahead and give it a try." -- Editor's Note: They'd never say this, or even think this. This is my paranoia broadcasting on loudspeaker inside my head. <-- I edited this
<edited for content... I went on a rant. Then I erased it. Then I wrote another rant. Nobody needs to read that. So that's gone too. The third, and last, rant almost made the cut.>
Plural thinking. It's how to solve a problem in many different ways. I was introduced to this phrase by Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing when Josh Lyman hosts a group of school kids in the cafeteria of The White House and talks to them about entertaining more than one idea. There is more than one way to write my thesis, more than one way to think about things, solve things, believe things, and if you ever find yourself stuck in thinking one way about anything... stop. Try and imagine the other side of the argument/discussion/conversation.
Plural thinking is the basis for empathy. Not sympathy. They are two different things. There are plenty of people who are sympathetic to any number of other people's plights (I can call about ten people right now who could all sympathize with the writing-a-thesis thing.) Sympathy = feelings of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Empathy = the ability to understand and share in the feelings of another.
Yeah. Some people condescend to sympathize with just about anyone. "Yeah, that sucks" is the aphorism of the apathetic. A sympathetic person will feel sorry for someone else, but will most likely move on fairly quickly from that emotion (America felt sorry for Sandy Hook, and now are carrying guns through the aisles of Target because they want to show their solidarity for Open Carry Laws.) An empathetic person actually needs to physically, emotionally, and thinking-ly stop (thinking-ly is not a word), and imagine what the other person/side/alien is feeling to try and understand it (So, yeah, I try to understand the people who believe vaccination is bad for kids.)
I am an empath. It's my superpower. I use my imagination to try and construct stories for people I do not yet understand so that I can make sense of the world. I can't help or stop myself from doing it. <empathetic rant where I imagine a conversation with right-wing political strategists> So, what does this have to do with getting a PhD?
Everything.
In order to write a (rather long) paper about a topic, any topic really, there is a completeness to the argument you are interested in that you have not yet thought of. There is a side to the conversation you have not yet heard, and probably don't want to hear. A person can sympathize without really listening; empaths have to listen to everything... and all too often, they lose their minds. But, you have to hear what everyone has to say (everyone that has an academic say-so, not everyone with an opinion) if you are going to empathize with those other arguments. You need to understand both, all three, all twelve sides to an argument/theory/idea before they let you participate in the discussion. All too often you shut your mind off to the opinions you don't want to hear. In a PhD, you have to present all sides to a very long argument, in an empathetic way so that each argument has its merits, and then by the end you have made a decision based on all the facts, opinions, and little tidbits you never wanted to hear about. You have to listen first in order to be heard. In order to get a PhD you have to prove that you've read everything about that topic, and then 'people' will say that you have the right to be heard yourself.
What did Marilyn Manson say when, in "Bowling for Columbine", Micheal Moore asked him, "If you could, what would you say to those kids who committed this terrible act?" <-- paraphrase
"Nothing," said Manson, "I'd listen to what they had to say." <-- paraphrase again
So, are you listening? I know. It's hard.
I'm listening.
"Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment." -- Hamlet (I.iii)
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." -- Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
"When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling." - Ernest Hemingway, "Across the River and Into the Trees"
Year 2, Day 268 - Words Written: 0.
No comments:
Post a Comment