Sarah Nicholson's Blog
January 16, 2016
Mastery, purpose, and the long dark night.
“Mastery is boring!”, Liz Gilbert exclaimed on her Big Magic podcast. I had to hear her say it twice before the statement kicked in. I had taken seven years as a single mother to finish my PhD. While I was writing it I was full of fascination and passion for my subject. Perhaps most importantly, I was filled with a sense of purpose and life meaning by my project. Once I’d finished it, that all fell apart.
I was left inside a long dark night. Not only did I no longer feel passion and fascination for my subject, the key intellectual communities I’d invested myself in left me empty. I had a series of (increasingly serious) fallings out with its founder and key thinker, and was left with the realisation that he and his organisation lacked integrity on more than one count. This compounded the blow.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t want to write, or talk, about my topic area anymore. I didn’t care. I felt done with it. I’d said what I wanted to say. I couldn’t read academic works anymore. I couldn’t write. I had to abandon a joint book project. I was dry, disappointed and done, and I felt traumatised.
I was meant to ‘do’ something with this PhD. If I wasn’t to escort my research into the public area, I should at least teach, surely? However, to top things off, the academic world was way more fucked up than I’d realised. I walked out with the highest degree that the university conferred, and the university sector responded with casual work offers at best. While I hadn’t been paying attention the university sector had been undermined by corporatism, and the core functions of the university (teaching) had been casualised.
What heck should I do with myself?, I worried. Should I become an entrepreneur and market my knowledge? After all, my research was in an area of the spiritual marketplace. I gave the idea a shot, but again, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Marketing spirituality disgusted me. So, I continued to flail around inside my long dark night for several years.
Finally, something totally unexpected clicked. I joined a creative writing group. I’d written a lot of poetry as a younger woman, but this was story writing. I’d never written stories, nor had ever considered that I’d be interested in writing a novel. But I’d been attracted by the teacher who advertised her interest in mythology and fairytales. During the course of my PhD I’d spent a lot of time looking at Sumerian archaeology as part a long fascination with the Sumerian goddess Inanna and her stories. I hadn’t included most of my research, and had instead shelved it to use ‘later’. It turned out that Inanna wasn’t finished with me. In this group something emerged. I started to write a story about a priestess of hers. I found myself rubbing up against something a new challenge: the craft of the novel writing. And from this spark, slowly, my sense of purpose and fascinating began to emerge again.
And so, when Liz’s Gilbert exclaimed that “Mastery is boring!”, it clicked. I had mastered my PhD and my topic, and I had gotten bored. She explained that artists go through moods and career shifts, and that evolution and change via a dark night of loss and confusion is normal. Her advice was to remain vital and curious about your work, to take new risks, to try something new and follow your curiosity and inspiration wherever it leads.
Onwards and upwards!
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
The Evolutionary Journey of Woman: From the Goddess to Integral Feminism
Full blog text with links & images
I was left inside a long dark night. Not only did I no longer feel passion and fascination for my subject, the key intellectual communities I’d invested myself in left me empty. I had a series of (increasingly serious) fallings out with its founder and key thinker, and was left with the realisation that he and his organisation lacked integrity on more than one count. This compounded the blow.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t want to write, or talk, about my topic area anymore. I didn’t care. I felt done with it. I’d said what I wanted to say. I couldn’t read academic works anymore. I couldn’t write. I had to abandon a joint book project. I was dry, disappointed and done, and I felt traumatised.
I was meant to ‘do’ something with this PhD. If I wasn’t to escort my research into the public area, I should at least teach, surely? However, to top things off, the academic world was way more fucked up than I’d realised. I walked out with the highest degree that the university conferred, and the university sector responded with casual work offers at best. While I hadn’t been paying attention the university sector had been undermined by corporatism, and the core functions of the university (teaching) had been casualised.
What heck should I do with myself?, I worried. Should I become an entrepreneur and market my knowledge? After all, my research was in an area of the spiritual marketplace. I gave the idea a shot, but again, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Marketing spirituality disgusted me. So, I continued to flail around inside my long dark night for several years.
Finally, something totally unexpected clicked. I joined a creative writing group. I’d written a lot of poetry as a younger woman, but this was story writing. I’d never written stories, nor had ever considered that I’d be interested in writing a novel. But I’d been attracted by the teacher who advertised her interest in mythology and fairytales. During the course of my PhD I’d spent a lot of time looking at Sumerian archaeology as part a long fascination with the Sumerian goddess Inanna and her stories. I hadn’t included most of my research, and had instead shelved it to use ‘later’. It turned out that Inanna wasn’t finished with me. In this group something emerged. I started to write a story about a priestess of hers. I found myself rubbing up against something a new challenge: the craft of the novel writing. And from this spark, slowly, my sense of purpose and fascinating began to emerge again.
And so, when Liz’s Gilbert exclaimed that “Mastery is boring!”, it clicked. I had mastered my PhD and my topic, and I had gotten bored. She explained that artists go through moods and career shifts, and that evolution and change via a dark night of loss and confusion is normal. Her advice was to remain vital and curious about your work, to take new risks, to try something new and follow your curiosity and inspiration wherever it leads.
Onwards and upwards!
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
The Evolutionary Journey of Woman: From the Goddess to Integral Feminism
Full blog text with links & images
