Shimon Schocken's rides of hope
I watched some ted videos randomly while doing my referencing and came across this one.
I thought it would be corny at best. An ok distraction to working out whether a government policy counts as a document or a report.
But I was surprised.
The journey these kids went on the mountain bike ride sounded exactly mine with my PhD. I fit pretty much into the category of intellectual juvenile delinquent because despite having some feral intelligence, my pre-PhD life was generally one of undisciplined intellectual wildness. Always above or below the law (in my head, in my research, in my writing style, in my referencing, in the organization of my ideas), I had been contained in the Israeli prison of cultural and mental mediocrity.
Yet, when I was released for a short break from this prison, given a mountain bike and told to shoot off, each time I had a fall, I was pretty much like these kids. I raged and stormed at the bike, kicked the stones around, and cursed like a fisher woman.
I did have a Simon Schocken substitute though. Who understood that I needed a person to stay close with the ranting and raving, and remind me about words like endurance, and use of resources. What I could do with scarce resources such as time. To not being able to write at length for more than 6 hours, without getting that awful mentally blown out feeling. To know what to do with abundant resources, such as references and quotes and data. A real intellectual does not over-present, rather she keeps a tight control on presenting exactly what, and only what is needed to make a point. Simple, following Einstein, but not too simple to lose value of meaning.
Who told me that when I was bloody and bruised climbing the mountain, I needed to keep my eye on the vista. Vista? The monastery on top of the hill? No, a Phd woman already lives in a monastery. Solitude is the occupational hazard, sometimes I go walking in the library to see the faces of real people. A different vista. The ability to see the larger relevance of the Phd. Beyond the petty fiddly little sentence and paragraph structures, the damned statistical program that needs code that is as minute as the steps in the tango, the supervisor who gets snotty with the mix of colons and hyphens in the table headers.
My Phd vista has been looking at all the ideas in the thesis as forming a sort of symphony in an orchestra. I start with the haunting violin solo, and then in moves cheeky accompaniment from the Cello. In the background, but enough to make you listen and laugh a bit. It builds, builds, builds and there is the whole orchestra, maestro manic with the coat tails flying and arms that defy the speed of light. Loud, shining, splendorous, in harmony, in argument, speaking to each other, having affairs, robbing banks, making babies! And then again, each instrument quietens, subtly, till you don't notice till the last moment, that it is just that little flute at the back of room, summing it up, simply, quietly, firmly, letting you down into a soft pillow of somnolence at the last note, leaving you dreaming in peace.
I am walking towards the end of my Phd now, bloody, every limb in my body broken, filthy with the ride, yet intellectually cleaned out, made pure. As sharp and as bright as the the Eldils that Ransom met in his first voyage out of the silent planet. The mud, the blood, the sweat, what I lost on the way, they all brought me to this final place on the top of my final Phd mountain.
I thought it would be corny at best. An ok distraction to working out whether a government policy counts as a document or a report.
But I was surprised.
The journey these kids went on the mountain bike ride sounded exactly mine with my PhD. I fit pretty much into the category of intellectual juvenile delinquent because despite having some feral intelligence, my pre-PhD life was generally one of undisciplined intellectual wildness. Always above or below the law (in my head, in my research, in my writing style, in my referencing, in the organization of my ideas), I had been contained in the Israeli prison of cultural and mental mediocrity.
Yet, when I was released for a short break from this prison, given a mountain bike and told to shoot off, each time I had a fall, I was pretty much like these kids. I raged and stormed at the bike, kicked the stones around, and cursed like a fisher woman.
I did have a Simon Schocken substitute though. Who understood that I needed a person to stay close with the ranting and raving, and remind me about words like endurance, and use of resources. What I could do with scarce resources such as time. To not being able to write at length for more than 6 hours, without getting that awful mentally blown out feeling. To know what to do with abundant resources, such as references and quotes and data. A real intellectual does not over-present, rather she keeps a tight control on presenting exactly what, and only what is needed to make a point. Simple, following Einstein, but not too simple to lose value of meaning.
Who told me that when I was bloody and bruised climbing the mountain, I needed to keep my eye on the vista. Vista? The monastery on top of the hill? No, a Phd woman already lives in a monastery. Solitude is the occupational hazard, sometimes I go walking in the library to see the faces of real people. A different vista. The ability to see the larger relevance of the Phd. Beyond the petty fiddly little sentence and paragraph structures, the damned statistical program that needs code that is as minute as the steps in the tango, the supervisor who gets snotty with the mix of colons and hyphens in the table headers.
My Phd vista has been looking at all the ideas in the thesis as forming a sort of symphony in an orchestra. I start with the haunting violin solo, and then in moves cheeky accompaniment from the Cello. In the background, but enough to make you listen and laugh a bit. It builds, builds, builds and there is the whole orchestra, maestro manic with the coat tails flying and arms that defy the speed of light. Loud, shining, splendorous, in harmony, in argument, speaking to each other, having affairs, robbing banks, making babies! And then again, each instrument quietens, subtly, till you don't notice till the last moment, that it is just that little flute at the back of room, summing it up, simply, quietly, firmly, letting you down into a soft pillow of somnolence at the last note, leaving you dreaming in peace.
I am walking towards the end of my Phd now, bloody, every limb in my body broken, filthy with the ride, yet intellectually cleaned out, made pure. As sharp and as bright as the the Eldils that Ransom met in his first voyage out of the silent planet. The mud, the blood, the sweat, what I lost on the way, they all brought me to this final place on the top of my final Phd mountain.
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