doubts & serious thoughts

I've had a lot of time to think about things lately. And something I've thought about came about because of an unsettling incident with someone I deeply care for. I reacted very defensively to something I'd written a while ago that he'd found. He was probing my opinion - as written in the piece - and I responded by taking it very personally. I thought long & hard about why that would happen. I can (and do) take constructive feedback, challenges to my opinions, doubts people have about what I'm saying. That happens all the time. My beliefs aren't universally held, even if that universe is just the gaggle of friends in my orbit.

So I thought & thought. And I realized that I have never written something serious that I didn't *have* to write. By have to write, I mean, wasn't for a class or to finish the requirements for a grad degree. I have never written to express my opinion in any public fora. Pieces written for courses or for work are only seen by a small number of people, maybe only one other person. Portions of writing for briefs and other filings are sometimes so diluted by the time they see the light outside the firm, they don't reflect any one person's written work. I have written all sorts of fun things. This blog-writing is fun. I am a vociferous writer of letters to the government, to companies, complaint letters, commendation letters. I've even had fun writing cover letters.

So.

The really scary part of this observation is that it is calling into serious question my belief that I should or could enter a career in academia. Professors write. They lecture too. But they write. About what they believe. And they publish it, so others can read it. Engage in their ideas, refute, agree, criticize, expand upon. This is what academics do. This is what they are excited about doing.

Am I excited about doing that? I don't know. Can I do it? I don't know.

The idea of an academic career has lurked in the recesses of my mind since undergrad. I would leave a lecture thinking about how I might teach the subject matter, what I would say about it, how I would get people to think about the issues. I have been told by many people that I would make a great professor. I love to learn. I am so very comfortable in an academic setting. It's like a home-coming of sorts.

But do I know what it would mean? What a career as an academic would mean? Or is just something that feels like a better fit than what I do now. Would it be a better fit? Would I be mediocre? Would I fear my ideas? Or worse, have none at all? Would my work be entirely derivative, unoriginal, wholly devoid of relevance? Would I be consumed by self-doubt & insecurity?

Sometimes we walk a path and it becomes so comfortable, that path. We see others on divergent paths, and we smile. We see how great that path looks, but we're comfortable on our path. Our path seems like the right path. But then the path gets more and more sparse. It's laden with twigs and rocks and ruts. Is this still the path, we wonder? Have we stepped off the path? We look back to see where we left the path. We don't know. We're confused. We hear the sounds of others on their divergent paths and we worry that we won't get to where we need to go because we've lost the path. Others will get there. We will be stuck in the forest & night will come. We won't see what we're doing, or where we're going. There is confusion: was this the right path to begin with? Were we supposed to go right at that last crossroads? Is this the terrain we were supposed to traverse?

Oh, ponderous thoughts for a Wednesday.