[7 of 100] Notes on Dissertation-Writing and Wedding Planning
I don't tend to think of myself as an indecisive person. Sure, when I'm tired or worn out I'll be more likely to turn decision-making over to somebody else when trying to decide where to eat dinner or what movie to see. And I'm sometimes I'm equally happy any one of mutliple options. But I get stymied when I am presented with truly vast arrays of choices. Put me, for example, in the shampoo aisle of the grocery store and, not being attached to one particular brand, I'll spend 10 minutes considering my options before just giving up and throwing something in the cart.
This is up for me today because after a bunch of hemming and hawing and changing of various kinds of minds, I need to order wedding invitations this week. Since we've put this off for awhile, I don't have a lot of time to waffle about it. Since I am me, I have a pretty strict sense of what I'm willing to pay. Since our wedding is going to be an eclectic affair, I don't want your standard-issue white or pastel cardstock with flowy lettering and super-formal language. I would like something Indian, or something bookish, or something with nature imagery. I would like to order it from a company in the US, to minimize the possibility of cross-continental communication mishaps. To find something that fits these parameters isn't necessarily hard, but it does require sifting through an awful lot of detritus, a process that quickly sends me up the wall. Planning a wedding can quickly send one down a merry path to hell in which you can easily become convinced (because all the vendors are trying to convince you that this is so) that every little decision you make is important and Says Something about you as a couple. Stepping back from that and letting go is easy for me in the moment when I'm not actively trying to plan something, harder when faced with dozens of open tabs in my browser.
I think is also a lot of what makes me crazy about the revision process with my writing. When I'm drafting I'm just moving between ideas, setting them out, working on articulating key points. There are plenty of choices being made at every moment, but they often happen on the sub-conscious level. In revision I have these sentences and paragraphs and pages that I've already written and I have to make choices about them. Which one get at the right idea, but in the wrong way? Which ones are irrelevant, and just need to be erased? Which ones need to be brought to the forefront? With 10 or 20 or 40 pages of writing the choices begin to multiply almost exponentially and I have to make each one deliberately and carefully, thinking about how the changes will affect other pages down the line. And at some point during my revision process I inevitably throw up my hands in exhaustion and call it "good enough."
In the long run, the decisions I make about my dissertation are more important than the decisions I make about my wedding, (though probably still less important than they feel to me now) and the decisions I make about my marriage, as distinct from the ceremony and celebration, are more important than either. If I can keep that straight for myself then I can remember that the choices I have are about freedom, and that I can always choose the easiest, simplest route if that is what will do the most to increase my happiness.
This is up for me today because after a bunch of hemming and hawing and changing of various kinds of minds, I need to order wedding invitations this week. Since we've put this off for awhile, I don't have a lot of time to waffle about it. Since I am me, I have a pretty strict sense of what I'm willing to pay. Since our wedding is going to be an eclectic affair, I don't want your standard-issue white or pastel cardstock with flowy lettering and super-formal language. I would like something Indian, or something bookish, or something with nature imagery. I would like to order it from a company in the US, to minimize the possibility of cross-continental communication mishaps. To find something that fits these parameters isn't necessarily hard, but it does require sifting through an awful lot of detritus, a process that quickly sends me up the wall. Planning a wedding can quickly send one down a merry path to hell in which you can easily become convinced (because all the vendors are trying to convince you that this is so) that every little decision you make is important and Says Something about you as a couple. Stepping back from that and letting go is easy for me in the moment when I'm not actively trying to plan something, harder when faced with dozens of open tabs in my browser.
I think is also a lot of what makes me crazy about the revision process with my writing. When I'm drafting I'm just moving between ideas, setting them out, working on articulating key points. There are plenty of choices being made at every moment, but they often happen on the sub-conscious level. In revision I have these sentences and paragraphs and pages that I've already written and I have to make choices about them. Which one get at the right idea, but in the wrong way? Which ones are irrelevant, and just need to be erased? Which ones need to be brought to the forefront? With 10 or 20 or 40 pages of writing the choices begin to multiply almost exponentially and I have to make each one deliberately and carefully, thinking about how the changes will affect other pages down the line. And at some point during my revision process I inevitably throw up my hands in exhaustion and call it "good enough."
In the long run, the decisions I make about my dissertation are more important than the decisions I make about my wedding, (though probably still less important than they feel to me now) and the decisions I make about my marriage, as distinct from the ceremony and celebration, are more important than either. If I can keep that straight for myself then I can remember that the choices I have are about freedom, and that I can always choose the easiest, simplest route if that is what will do the most to increase my happiness.