...yeah, we do
yeah, we do
The Coldplay video 'Don't Panic'. Also the inspiration for the title of this blog post.
I've been panicking recently. Thinking about my life, and my future, and where I'd like both to go.
There is the commonly accepted view, that I'll get a degree, do research further on, and settle as a professor. That is the science-related profession that is least loathsome, or most enjoyable, to me. I'm not quite sure which. At the moment, I do enjoy the subjects I'm taught, except when I'm to actually study them. Perhaps that is just my natural tendency to laziness and under-utilization of my brain.
There is another, that wants me to take a year off, concentrate on my writing, and try to get published. This has a lot more uncertainty in it than anything else: whether I'll achieve fulfillment in doing something I've always wanted to do; whether I'll be good enough to live on my writing alone, a rare enough return on the dream that I, like a lot of people before me have possessed.
Not writing for weeks and weeks together, not expanding my mind through wide reading, is putting me back three and a half weeks for every month of progress I make in my writing. It's simple, really. Writing is a profession like any other. No one simply sits down to be a writer. It needs practice, and learning, and reading and then some more practice, and so on. If I have to be a writer I need to work on it 24x7 for three or four years or 20 minutes a day for 20 years.
Being a good scientist will require me to give up my voracious reading and focus on my studies, and external science-related stuff, work in a lab, perhaps, with lesser free time to write as I please. Or else I'll mess up like I have so far, with my CPI, not getting a good project: no one wants a half-hearted student. I will not learn what I need to, to be successful in the future. Everything I've worked on until now will be a waste if I don't avail myself of the opportunities I've been given by putting my soul into science.
There are no shortcuts in life.
Katze.
P.S. Still panicking. This didn't help at all.
I think you can always switch to literature even if you realize it pretty late in your life . Look at Khaled Hosseini or the very famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle !
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know, but why waste time? I was just trying to see whether I should do what I want to do(or think I do) or what I'm supposed to do; and which one is the right choice.
ReplyDeleteIt's the uncertainty that kills you.
Katze
P.S. I did some research, and WOW. I had no idea both of them were practicing doctors. It's actually pretty incredible that they came to their calling after more than a decade of doing something else.
That's what i keep on saying. You do study well now and you can always do whatever you want to do in future. right now focus on your studies. you have a natural talent. you don't need much learning to become a good authoress.
ReplyDeleteIs that you, Wavlee? You're mean to not sign in :( I thought it was some arbit person and responded all seriously and all!
ReplyDeleteAnd that was kind of my point. You don't need to learn, maybe, but you need to devote a lot of time, a lot of energy into becoming a good writer. Not agreeing to /that/ is discounting writing as a worthwhile profession: which it is, whatever you may say about it.
I should study, but only because since I've gotten myself into this commitment, I mustn't back out of it.
So do I know you, then? I'm sorry, I'm not really used to anyone commenting on my blog, having an average of about 0.15/post or something.
DeleteKatze
now get used to :P
Deletemay be you know me
i don't know if you know me
it depends how do you define "know"
waiting for your next blog
and you should study not because you have gotten yourself into it but because you are learning some thing new and you are lucky to be in IIT Bombay.
Deletewho knows some molecule's properties or any random chemistry may give you idea to write a novel. :P
like it happened with Jeffrey Archer, he got idea of and wrote prison break while he himself was in prison!!!!!!!
You probably get this a lot but I feel like we are in the same dilemma. I'm torn apart between the two too. But I want both. I think that's good. The best writers were the ones from unfitting backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't stand it. I took a decision about six months ago, that I wanted to focus on writing above all. Because if I ask myself, what is the one thing I don't want to die without doing, it's always the same: I don't want to die without having been published, or without having been read.
DeleteI'm planning to at least strike out as a writer/editor or something similar. If it goes badly, I'll still have a degree in chemistry.