On my ridiculous research life

Every once in a while I have a moment in my day where I realize how ridiculous and impractical my life is. Let me explain.  As grad student in a research-focused program, I'm being pruned into a researcher complete with a scientific brain and critical thinking skills.  In order to get really good at these things, as is the case with most things, you just practice a lot.  So, most of my day is composed of "research."  Well, research in my field, psychology, is really just informing yourself of the current state of the field, thinking a whole lot, coming up with questions that haven't been answered yet, figuring out how to answer them, doing the things you need to do to answer them, getting an answer, writing it down, and getting someone else to publish it.

But really this process boils down to two things: writing and postulating.  While writing is a useful and applicable skill-- something that, when you do it, produces something tangible-- postulating is really just talking nonsense for hours on end until something sticks, throwing ideas around, philosophizing, hypothesizing, supposing.  Postulating does not immediately produce anything of any use to anyone except the postulater.  It's an incredibly selfish way to spend time--thinking about your own thoughts--and strangely, this is what I am encouraged to do for hours on end and for what I am paid.  Further, the expectations for actual product resulting from this process are low.  Of the thousands of thoughts I toss out into the ether every week, I'd say one sticks and becomes something useful, like a publishable study, every month or so.

This is why I have deemed my life ridiculous. It's such a privileged and cushy existence.  So ivory tower.  I get paid to think...and one out of four-thousand thoughts, write.  

So out of touch with reality.  So impractical. But that 4,000th thought? Well,  I like to think that thought is pretty special.

Keep on thinking,
Josie