Since starting this blog in early 2004 (I know; I’m an ancient blogger), I have always been enrolled in a PhD program in philosophy, specializing in “American” philosophy/Pragmatism/“something that, in a discipline that doesn’t matter, does matter”/etc. I spent three years on-campus, then one year in Baltimore researching and writing full-time.
Then, I was job-hunting, serving two years in AmeriCorps and suffering in that limbo known as being ABD (All But Dissertation), of being a “doctoral/PhD candidate” for a total of three years. This was unpleasant for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a lifetime of Catholic education certainly seems to breed into you a certain “work guilt” (my uncreative term for it) wherein you feel this wet rug of shit you should be doing hanging over your head all of the time. For instance, if I remembered a pleasant weekend or our fun traveling from fall 2006, my work guilt kicked in, said, “But you’re not finished your dissertation,” and I had to occupy myself with something else to stay sane.
During my first year of AmeriCorps (my second non-working-on-school year), I proofread (not edited) my dissertation and sent it to my director. Not much happened until the fall of 2009, when we decided on some edits and when I set about making them. I don’t want to underplay the sleepless nights since September spent worrying about whether or not we’d be able to get to Carbondale before Charlotte was born to defend, but we got dates set in January. I was, as you might remember, ecstatic. I never realized that I was under so much pressure from this damned thing for three a years on a constant basis. I defended in March. Bingo. Made more changes, formatted it, submitted it, and all was finished. Even double-checked the paperwork with the grad school.
Folks were congratulating me after my defence, but I was obsessed with getting my revisions made (I did nothing but work at my job and on my dissertation for ten days to perfect everything my committee wanted), and for some reason, I couldn’t imagine life with my decade-long formal education being over and done with. Nothing would really be “official” until graduation day in May, anyway, right? Last Friday, that is.
So I should say that I USED to have to live under the shadow of that unfinished doctorate. I USED to sometimes wonder what the point was, since I was not pursuing employment in academic philosophy anyway. I USED to be a student.
Now, I’m finished, and I have those three little letters after my name.
It’s only been a few days, and pretty much the only thing in the world I care about these days is my family. So I haven’t picked up my journal, gone for any walks or really thought about what it means to me now. That is, not beyond serious relief.
If the most significant result of my finishing a PhD (aside from debt) is relief, that would almost seem like a let-down. But, for a largely guilt-driven person like me, relief is excellent. Like the Greek “pleasure” at the absence of pain, I am thrilled — so far — with the relief that the goal to which I’ve been working since I was 18 years old and hadn’t met my wife yet (though I would that month) has been attained. Maybe now I can use the energy I was wasting on feeling guilty and procrastinating into something positive, beneficial, useful or fun.
Of course, I feel weird now, having a doctorate that I pursued in order to do something which I have no intention of doing anymore. Nietzsche says we can do with any HOW if we have a WHY. I lost the WHY and kept going. I was already in debt and had already missed most of my 20s. Stopping didn’t seem like a good idea to me at the time, and I’m glad I finished now.
But, bejebus, think about your WHYs more, Johnny. Geez. Making a decision at 18 and sticking to it might not be the wisest thing to do, for a person who values good judgment, flexibility and genuineness.
