June 21, 2005
What Does One Do When the Smelly Monkeys Have Left One's Back?
Today I'm feeling pretty weird. I have lived with smelly, filthy, hairy, incomplete writing project monkeys on my back since autumn 2001. Now all the monkeys are gone. It's all forward-looking. Kinda anxiety-producing, actually.
I'm now confronted with the singular fact: all my endless years of education have focused onto one writing project. What if it fails? What if this has all been an elaborate hoax, a shell game at which I've been successful at masking my utter and complete incompetence? What if I don't have anything worthwhile to say? What if I can do research but find myself unable to "contribute original work to my field"?
Worse: What if this singular focus works to upset and imbalance the path of working out my faith with fear and trembling? Not a few Christians have found their faith wrecked on the edifice of their PhD. What if I've come this far only to lose all that's valuable in the end?
It must be the two months' worth of sleep deprivation talking. Or maybe it's my mental exhaustion. I'm wiped.
My new prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim and the Great Martyr Katherine of Alexandria, sanctify my mind in my heart through the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit and enable me to successfully write and defend my dissertation proposal by the end of the autumn semester 2005.
