answers are for newbies
Upon reaching my Terrible Twos, my father vowed that he would always answer my questions truthfully and to the best of his ability. Two year olds are best known for their barage of ‘why?’ questions. was a talker. I loved to explain things and I couldn’t imagine why anyone else wouldn’t want to. My dad tried to keep up. I would grill him about cloud shapes, rules about noise in libraries, the decline of the 2 dollar bill, and the logic behind bedtimes for little girls. If it existed, I needed to know why.
He tried his best. I don’t remember the exact question that pushed him over the edge and compelled him to spit out the dreaded answer: “Because I said so!” Since it never became a deeply ingrained memory I could later tell my therapist, I probably accepted it as a valid response. But for him it was a slippery slope. In mere seconds, he became like all other parents.
Despite this, my curiosity was not squelched. 27 years later, I became a PhD student, a martyr who eschews a normal life in a quest to answer questions that no one else can or will. Of course, the cruel truth of scholarship is that truly good work raises more questions as it answers. Sometimes all you have to do is ask; there may not be an answer, or it may not matter. The asking alone is an art and a skill.
Now that I’m a grad student, it’s my job to ask (preferably new) questions and at least seek (preferably creative) answers. I’m reading more of Tarleton Gillespie, whom I admire and am envious of. He’s the guy who raised questions, provided answers, and set a framework in which I can follow. I read his book and wish I had the chance to write it. But I have to remind myself that there’s room for me to try to answer his questions and ask more of my own. All it takes is the willpower to face the empty page and write all the words in my head that seem content to stay there. Even in small steps, the Big Project is scary, overwhelming, and not for the faint of heart.
On another note, blogging is also not for newbies. I’m tempted to write a blog about blogging, but I can’t do something so unabashedly “meta” when I’m extremely sick of the word. So far, I can’t even title the damn thing because I’m not entirely sure of the point. But if I write anything worth reading, even if it’s by 2 people, (hi mom) then I’ll consider it a successful endeavor. I have plenty of blogger-crushes, and I can only hope to provide a small percentage of what they do.
