i have no clue what i'm doing: resentment, thoughts on academia, & writing for the sake of writing

Generally speaking, when it comes to writing and academia, I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing. This is in spite of the fact that whenever I am asked to define myself, my mind immediately jumps to calling itself ‘a writer’ or ‘a student’ or ‘an academic’ or a myriad of other self-indulgent titles. But I spend remarkably little time actually writing, or studying, or being ‘an academic’- whatever that actually means. I spend most of my time thinking about nothing. I am a supervisor in a shop in a relatively rough area and for whatever reason, it’s getting rougher . I worked 40 hour weeks during my undergrad. I only did the readings if I could find the energy to carry on after five boring pages of the so-called classics, which, I imagine most of my contemporaries also did. I suppose that changed a little in third year, after a few enjoyable classes and a change in attitude- I think becoming more apathetic helped me a lot in this regard- I managed to become what I think a college student should be. Obviously everybody has a different definition of this. I suspect the most common definition of college is a gateway to a world beyond college, which is to say, employment. The idea of linking what should be fun with money, the lifeblood of a person forced to exist under late-stage capitalism makes me sick, and it's something I'll do my best to avoid, though I imagine, there will come a time when I'll be forced to do so.

I worked through my undergraduate degree, and I resent myself a little for defining myself as an employee first and a student second during that time. I resent being forced to engage with university, and learning, and writing, and enjoyment, and everything within a capitalist paradigm. That shift in perspective was key for me, I feel. Identifiers, while simple, often act as a conduit for my own personal feelings about myself and my surroundings. Instead of being a manager who studies English sometimes, I am now a student of English, a Master’s student, who is also forced to exist within a capitalist paradigm, to enter into a purgatory of sorts, so I can be allowed to continue my existence in a dignified way. See, capitalism has rules. We know this. And academia has rules too. I must admit that I resent both of these, viewing them as conservative and anachronistic products of an elite, oppressive, and exclusionary patriarchal society.

I understand why academia has rules, more so than the rules of capitalistic societies, but I view these rules as nothing more than an inconvenience. I understand some: I understand why we should not plagiarise, foundations of academic integrity that are built upon morals of mutual respect, but I also reject rules that seem to fly in the face of that aforementioned mutual respect. I abhor the conventions of academic writing. I hate feigning professionalism. I hate feigning intellectual superiority. I hate the exclusionary nature of this. I’ve been criticised for this throughout my undergrad. I’ve received comments that my style of writing is too discursive, not academic enough (which I still fail to understand), and too informal. I must admit I took it as a challenge in my final year. I actively played into this style of writing. In my own little- admittedly childish- way of rebellion, I managed to write in a way that was self-fulfilling, and forced whoever was correcting my essay to judge me solely based on the quality of my ideas, rather than how my ideas were presented. I feel if academia let go of these antiquated ways of writing, of allowing individual students and writers more autonomy in choosing how they present themselves and their arguments, then we would be taking a step in the right direction.

I think this is why I define myself as a writer of fiction first, and an academic writer second. I love the freedom that fiction allows. I can exploit form and syntax and ideas to fit my needs rather than form and syntax and ideas exploiting me. My current novel, coincidentally, is set in UCC and follows a student named Jess after a particularly tumultuous childhood. Also coincidentally, this novel is an amalgamation of the three topics within academia and the study of literature that I have fallen in love with:

1. stories of mental health and trauma;

2. working class and feminist stories and;

3. queer stories.

Now that should be of no surprise. My interest in academia lies in those occupying the periphery of it. My interest in life is the examination of the proletariat, how they cope, how they struggle, and how we can uplift and drag them, kicking and screaming, into a more inclusive, diverse, and genuinely fun world of academia. My interest in writing lies depictions of these kinds of people, their struggles, their triumphs, their aspirations, their disillusionment, and ultimately, the relationships that help them cope with the absurdity of life on our own personal floating space rock. I have just hit the 25% mark of my novel. Writing it has been equally pleasurable and miserable. I have a tendency to co-opt the feelings of my own characters, which could be interpreted as the feelings of my own unconscious, which results in a weird feedback loop that can end either positively or negatively. But to combat that is easy: just write, and write for the sake of writing because it is unbelievably fun when you’re playing by your own rules.

I suppose that brings me to my point: I have no clue what I’m doing and I’m okay with that. I just know that I’m having fun, and that’s enough.

I suppose, to circle back to the whole point of this blog, future posts will be about my journey in and around academia, how I stumble towards my MA thesis topic, learning for the sake of learning, and maybe an occasional piece of fiction (novel extracts or short stories).

- tadhg