This did not work as planned.

What a start. So from the beginning. Over the summer I wanted to catch up on everything, be ahead of my preparations for the next semester, and regularly update this blog. But then I got stuck in a Writer’s Block. This affected both, the blog and the final paper I still have to finish.
What was going on? I have made posts before, I have written plenty academic papers, so why was I unable to do neither?

My diagnosis: I relapsed very hard and again found myself in a situation in which I thought that I didn’t have anything smart to say. Nothing worthy of being put out here on this blog, nothing elaborate to contribute in the final paper. Is this a variety of imposter syndrome? Likely.

It is so odd when you think about it: This blog is mine, it is my space to express my thoughts freely – and it isn’t as if my head was empty. The document with ideas to write about has quite a respectable size. I shouldn’t worry about what anybody thinks besides me. At least for now. And finishing the final paper earlier would have allowed me to just enjoy the summer, without one big task looming in the back of my head, always providing an underlying level of stress. And yet…

Reflecting on my relationship to academic work, I found myself being scared that my thoughts and writing wouldn’t be „good enough“: That I wouldn’t have any great insights, that my points and arguments wouldn’t be well-researched enough, that I didn’t think things through thoroughly and that I might have overlooked grave points. But instead I seem to be overlooking one central point: The paper (or this blog for that matter) don’t need to have final answers. None of this has to be perfect. These are works in progress after all. And I myself, as a PhD student, am a philosopher in-training.

In less than two weeks, when I will be teaching my Intro to (Social) Epistemology class, I will tell my students that philosophy, as a discipline, inherently is not about finding final answers. That it is questioning what one presumes to know, exploring ideas, providing arguments. One might reach a satisfactory point after studies and research – but not an end. And surely not an end that is in any kind of way perfect. So while I am thinking about the advice and insights I want to share with my students, I’m asking myself: Why can I be so insistent on these points when it comes to others, but not when it comes to myself?

After giving it some thought I came to realize: In the same kind of way that I act as an authority towards my students, „allowing“ them to embrace imperfection and to be courageous about their thoughts, no matter how well-formed they are – in the same kind of way I seem to be waiting for an authority that tells me: „What you have done so far is good! Go ahead, explore it more! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, to have your voice and thoughts heard. After all, ANY feedback is an opportunity for improvement.“

The problem with this is that as I am maturing within philosophy as a profession, this legitimating instance more and more has to become myself. My professors can hold my hand only for so long. It is about time to let go. After all, they already deem me qualified enough to teach undergraduate students on my own. Shouldn’t that be a major source of confidence?

I think to a certain extent I have already detached from my professors. I have internalized the restrictive part, I know what not to do in my work. However, I am not embracing the encouraging part. So I am stuck in one extreme, and the task now becomes to move further away from it, without shooting into the other extreme. It is about finding the middle ground.

There is this amazing quote I once found on tumblr:

Everything gets easier with practice, so be careful what you practice.

I gave my restrictive super-ego way too much exercise. It’s about time I start working on my more generous and enabling side. But how does that look like? Well, referencing Nike’s famous slogan: I just have to do it. I have to put my fears aside, I have to sit down, write, and be confident about it. It might not be perfect, it will have many flaws. But I know I will not fail. So much confidence I have at least. So what is even at stake? That I try and not get it perfectly right the first time? I can (and will) still come up with something decent, maybe it is even going to exceed my own expectations? What if it turns out great? Doesn’t sound like bad odds to me.

The quality of the final product cannot be assessed in advance. It needs to be produced first. And there was a time when I enjoyed academic writing. I was still stressed, but not to the point that I ended up being paralyzed. This time, this mindset – it seems very far away, distant, from a long time ago. But I know that I have been there, that I still have these skills. I just have to practice them again. It will uncomfortable at the beginning. But it will get easier over time.

So let’s proceed ahead, courageously. (And break this stupid writer’s block)