PhD Journey #12: Three lessons I have learned about reading
The art of intellectual intimacy and flirtatious reality of reading everything without actually reading everything in monogamist reality.
Dear friends, I am glad you are here reading,
I have actually stopped caring, at this point in my PhD journey, because I am diving deep into myself and honestly, I have never been an ‘open’ sharer, it terrifies me. I am using my real name for goodness sakes, no hiding here!
Therefore, I don’t want anyone to read this, but I need to record this part of the journey for myself, for my own understanding!
Let me start with a confession, this is where I don’t poor my heart out, open up my wounds only to be crushed by lack of engagement by my readers, because I am writing for me.
Instead, today I have noticed something about me that I haven’t noticed before, I am documenting this for my record so I can remember this exact moment that I have realised this.
I love flicking though books far more than I love reading books. I love the feel and the smell.
I used to laugh and mock theories while studying at university and in practice [true story], chuckled at philosophies of life, and held on to a deep seeded belief that they are so far removed from real-life and they are absolutely ridiculous. I am now developing one, gulp, I’ve learned they are actually based on real life, real people, real lives, I honestly did not see this coming!
My usually messy filing continues to be only understood by me with research articles papers? Downloaded. Scanned. Noted. Filed. I have completed business administration training long before I started university and loads of professional experience, and this hasn’t helped me at all in my PhD.
Reports? Saved.
Narratives of so many lived experiences? Bookmarked. Summarised in at worksheet. Reviewed. Noted. Reread multiple times.
Grey literature? Filed neatly into folders with names like Important Reading and Definitely Reading This Later. It is unlikely I will every open these.
My digital NVIVO library now contains enough material to keep me intellectually entertained until approximately 2087.
The problem isn’t acquiring more readings and building my knowledge. I have stopped for now. Its sorting through genuine crap that is out there that lacks credibility this part is really consuming my time right now.
The problem is that every author appears to believe they are god’s gift to knowledge and they are the only true source of information, insight and of what is right or wrong. They obviously haven’t heard of subjectivity or conveniently ignored it.
This isn’t sarcasm. Just honesty. My subjective truth.
I am taking some inspiration from Spy movie where Susan Cooper’s character, an unassuming, deskbound CIA analyst steps up to go deep undercover. Her mission is to infiltrate the world of a deadly arms dealer and prevent a global disaster. With this in mind. Let me explain what I have learned about me so far on the rollercoaster of a PhD journey.
I like to think of myself as intellectually adventurer [this does not mean I am smart] it just means that I find smart things sexy. Reading monogamy simply doesn’t exist for me. I’m in a committed open relationship with books, articles, research papers, newsletters, podcasts, Substack posts and random PDFs downloaded to my phone or laptop. It may appear that I’m having an emotional affair with a neuroscience paper, flirting shamelessly with a love researcher book, and exchanging meaningful glances with a report on global politics podcaster. Some people stay faithful to one book, one knowledge holder until the very end. This is not me.
I often joke that I’m not just in an open relationship with all thing’s content and text. I’m part of an intellectual flirter’s network of readers who join in but don’t talk about it openly. While some readers commit to one book or article at a time and faithfully see it through to the end, I find myself attending literary parties where books get exchanged freely. I might arrive holding a biography form one person, spend twenty minutes with a psychology textbook, dive head over heels into a dark poem, slip away with a report on global economics, and somehow end the evening in deep conversation with a paper on neuroscience. While just completely emotionally investing one minute I find myself hopping around to other ideas with wandering eyes. Looking for the next catch.
“I am just exploring ideas”, I tell myself, “I can’t figure what you want", others tell me, “I will let you know when I work it out”, I respond, keeping open to more intellectual intimacy. I feel completely scandalous confessing my truth, yes, as if that makes it any less clearer for you to understand. At any given moment I’m simultaneously involved with six books, three newsletters, a podcast, and a random PDF I met online. Some call it a lack of focus; these people are narrow minded and live a sheltered life. I prefer to think of it as consensual intellectual non-monogamy. The only thing being exploited here is, my own attention span, and expanding brain intellect that leads to emotional fulfillment and physiological experiences.
In the context of my reality and of who I am, I need to connect to my truth, I meet it at my resistance, pause and question the hell out of it why I am resisting it! I am too old to dance around the truth within me. Life is moving and I need to move with it.
This isn’t an exaggerated version of me at all; it’s a point of connection I only realised today. This is a significant moment in my journey to track my progress, my voice and I am reconnecting to myself. A commitment to build on from what I have learned in Singapore. It is grounded in my reality of being a woman and all things that come with being a person. As a teen I would find myself flicking through so many books while reading only a handful and now a researcher sorting through literature but only reading what is really needed to be read.
This is no coincidence, it is a clear path that I wasn’t clear about before, I research content, text and communication in the context of human suffering. I experience strong feelings of literary commitment phobia. I’m a reading polygamist. It’s a self-confessed emotional affair that I am finally embracing, understanding and fully committed to. I enjoy the warmth and intimacy of many words, stories and knowledge. Searching and wondering about the meaning between a word, a sentence or a paragraph and of course the whole story of experiences, not satisfied with one explanation. Re-reading the text several times before I am satisfied with my own conclusion. At this point questioning why, I know what I know at this point becomes grounded in multiple narrative realities and an amusing dance. It is concluded with interpretive dance, only to be told, “No, you just don’t understand.” At that point, you’re no longer having a conversation; you’re participating in a psychological escape room where the exit door keeps moving. The beauty of the phrase is that it is impossible to disprove. The more evidence you present that you do understand, the more it apparently proves that you don’t. It’s the conversational equivalent of being told you’ve lost a game you didn’t know you were playing.
It quickly moves into attention-spam adventurer that can’t be pinned down to one source of knowledge, there are multiple sources of knowledge.
Text communication in real-life today’s life is a fascinating social experience in which we try to convey complex emotions using tiny black symbols on a glowing screen. Unlike face-to-face conversations, texts appear in our lives out of the blue, without a real tone of voice, facial expressions, raised eyebrows, awkward pauses, a head nod, or head shake, or reassuring smiles. Aha, those eyes, eyes tell me so much and often feel like windows to our souls. The body that speaks to us without words, the movement, tension or openness. As a result, a simple “Okay” or thumbs up can be interpreted in several ways and hold different meaning for different readings. Is it an agreement, disappointment, passive aggression, or the beginning of a full-blown feud? We often fill in the emotional gaps with our own assumptions, bias, fears, and insecurities, turning innocent messages into unprovoked emotional psychoanalysis.
I’m not a reading monogamist. I’m an intellectual flirt with a well-documented and transparent history of commitment issues.
I do keep my ideas contained ready for scrutiny later as I prepare for text analysis adopting the adventurous spirit of Susan Cooper’s character in SPY. I use a literature review template with neatly annotated notes, sometimes colour coding if I am feeling extra adventurous;
So far, I have three lessons I have noticed about myself along my PhD journey;
One, I don’t believe everything I read and apply critical scrutiny to everything I do read, cynical powers paired with literately knowledge are important here far more than I did before when I started this journey.
Two, one person’s trash is another one’s treasure online and in real-world, content and text are no different, they have intersectional influences, emotional connections to our own lives and are sprinkled in bias gun powder. So, now I choose wisely and ask myself why did this text, story or information appeal to me? Should I try reading something different today?
Three, tracking what I read to create meaning from it is not a new idea or a new concept. I found tracking my readings really important because I notice patterns in text, literature, and what I am reading that I haven’t noticed before. This is set up in a simple table with headings and summaries.
On a closing fieldnote; one observation of my PhD journey articles is they have moved from a rigid clinical reflection to more grounded in real-life madness as I progress through this once in a lifetime journey. This is important progress and growth [or connection to madness is the growth - I need to return to this!]. I felt real pressure when first starting this blog not really having a clear mission. It is my evidence. This doesn’t feel like life transformation or carefully selecting midlife madness events and purpose for reinvention. It feels like I am remembering the person I have always been but with greater attention to detail of what that actually means. I wonder if this what motherhood does to us.
Continue reading…
