Dissertation Episode 5: Mucking Myth Mucker Mythy Myth-Myth
Or
Aaaaahhhhh!!!! I Broke My Brain

I don’t actually have anything to say--no axe to grind, no soapbox from which I will preach. Indeed my normally bounteous supply of rage lies cold and still like a dead volcano. Rather, I thought I would muddle through all the stuff on myth I have been reading and try to make some sense out of it.

That’s a great opening eh? I know THAT is precisely the sort of introduction that makes a person want to keep reading. (Lack of rage does not denote lack of sarcasm.)

In all honesty, though, I feel like I broke myself. I fear I am literally, actually, and truthfully (do you like how I used 3 words that mean the same thing?) not smart enough to do what I want to do. It’s kind of hard to tell because I’ve never actually applied myself wholly to something and seen just what my limits are--hell of a time to start, huh?

Even in music, certainly the only activity I devoted any serious amount of concentration to prior to grad school, I was only ever interested in being good enough. My naturally competitive nature (did you know I was stubborn and like to win? Apparently everyone has known but me) meant that I worked to be the “best” amongst the people around me, but being all I could be (thank you Army) was a non-issue. Who cared how good I could be? All that mattered was that I knew I was good.

This is, by the by, precisely the sort of thinking that led to a copious amount of B’s and not a few C’s on my report cards over the years. I’ve just never been interested in investing a lot of worry in a job that could be accomplished satisfactorily with little fuss.

But now, of course, I’m engaged in this process of active self-realization, education, and improvement. In other words, I am consciously trying to be the best thinker, et. al. that I can be. It’s incredibly over-rated and I highly recommend you pursue other venues of excitement. But active self-realization, especially this whole dissertation process, means that if I accept “good enough” then I will never know what I am capable of. I will never feel like I found the boundaries of my abilities.

At some point if you want to do something that matters you have to suck it up and try, regardless of the almost assured result of failure.

And so, having no shortage of ego, I embarked on my dissertation with lofty hopes and high goals of “saying something that mattered.” It’s really a good thing I was as concrete as possible in my goal-setting by the way. I have revised this goal, in no small part thanks to my awesome (AWESOME) advisor to “saying something that matters to me” and that small revision has allowed me to move forward whereas before I had the momentum of a beached whale.

But…(why is there always a but?) saying something that matters to me means figuring out what matters to me. Furthermore, due to my need to be right (oh shut up) I want everyone else to agree that what matters to me matters to them. And finally (isn’t it impressive I can lay out my neurosis like this in shopping list form?) because I am, at heart, a performer I want them to like agreeing with me; I want them to be entertained.

Why am I not humble, shy, and retiring? WHY?! In answer to that I’m going to go with the current obesity epidemic--it’s hard to fade into the background when you’re the size of a small dump truck. There’s one for the insurance companies: obesity made me egotistical.

But I digress. All of this rambling is to the larger point that I have been reading books of myths, books on the history of myth, books on the nature of myth, books on archetypes, and books on books about things that might possibly have contributed to the possible construction of social matrixes which in turn reproduce the myths of pre-history all the while claiming to be removing myth resulting in the myth of mythlessness…

You see why my brain is broken?

I have been reading these things and highlighting and note taking and composing and idea garnering and I can’t help but think to myself: Self, you’re no dummy. You can see the connections. You can see how things are interrelated. But are you really smart enough to make the argument yourself? Do you really have what it takes to put all of this into conversation with itself and make a larger overarching point that is valid and interesting?

And my self replies: I want a cookie.

This is my life people. By the power of Grayskull someone please find me a wealthy husband to support me and a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

Not necessarily in that order.