So this is another one of those long percolating topics that has become something of a fixation of mine over the last several months in particular. It really a broad topic so I will spread my mess of a discussion of over a few posts for both my sake and any reader's sake. I already wrote a post about a month ago that described some of the more positive things I am looking forward to in the near term. The post that follows likely isn't as cheery as that one was as I wish here to delve into more murky longer term aspects of my future. It seems only natural that as I consider my future I consider where I have come from and where I want to go. I tend to think in broad strokes toward the long term, envisioning where I want to be in 5, 10 years and what the important things would be to constituting a happy life. In my mind it is very clear where I want to end up and it is nothing too complex. I have long felt that if I can get to a place similar to what my parents have I will be very content.
I am not sure what it is about this moment in time, but I am feeling increasingly unnerved that to achieve my end goals in life my aim and trajectory so to speak are way off the mark.
To this point I have always chosen the path of education and a slavish duty to life-preparation in place things more broadly categorized as "fun" or things related to relationships and love. The former devotion to education has always seemed like the most critical to me. How can I be "worthy" of the latter unless I make myself into someone that has a firm foundation for the future? I always figured that the rest of the pieces would just fall into place somehow. I guess sort of an old-fashion notion of things.
I am however increasingly pessimistic that that will be the case.
It feels like as time goes on the nature of the career-path I am pursuing has the tendency to ostracize me from those around me who aren't traveling down into the same rabbit hole that I am. There seems to be this cavernous gulf growing in between me and many others. I am always most reminded of this when I visit my extended relatives. The subject of grad school or chemistry or anything like that just doesn't come up. Something that is such a big part of my life is a non-starter. It's really a nonstarter. I don't have a family (baby!) or significant other with fun little stories about life.
Now that isn't meant to be dismissive of all the other individuals with whom I have interacted with consistently for years and years who are of similar like-mind, pursuing chemistry degrees, but to have a life totally built around your chosen profession can somewhat diminish those other qualities about yourself that make you you. Unless you are just a very outgoing person (something that I have never been accused of), life as a graduate student tends to be spent day after day with a very select peer group and a not all together diverse one. Consequently, it becomes more difficult to see yourself in a light not defined by chemistry or for others to perhaps do the same.
I guess I really have no evidence of this last notion other than the impressions I get from certain interactions with people. Heaven knows I can be completely misreading situations like this, I have done it for years, but it is certainly something that worries me going forward. I may have touched on this at some point in a blog post in the past, but in contrast to my ideal vision of my future sketched out above it really feels like my path is headed to one of isolation. Isolation.
Before this spirals out of control and into something that neither I or anybody else will want to read, I will leave a more detailed discussion of what I mean for later. Hopefully I can touch on some of what I consider as lessons from the past that I seem doomed to repeat as well as things that just I won't (can't?) let go of that I feel may be sabotaging other efforts of mine, while making the connection to some of these insecurities that have been mention here. (Nice run-on sentence there.)
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