Existential Pickle. That's What I Said.

I had one of those nights last night. A few random events coincided and left me in something of an existential pickle:

First, following the advice of this lady and this guy, I signed up to a few relevant H-Net categories so that I'd be helpfully spammed by groups of humanities scholars. 24 hours later, I was e-mailed by a French professor (from France) asking about my interests, in French. I am still reeling with intimidation and I have to get around to replying in my god-awful written French, probably tonight.

Second, an old friend from UO wrote to update a few of us on his comings and goings. There was nothing surprising: he's doing great, passed his QE's with flying colors, and is off to Europe to research. Reading his message, however, reminded me of everything I haven't done in my would-be academic career: been to a proper conference in my field, published anything, made any substantive connections with well-known scholars, done a damn bit of my own archival research. I feel like I'm perpetually spinning my wheels, reading books, writing reaction papers, and writing stuff on the same shit I've been doing since I was a senior in college.

In the end, I'm forced to confront the fact that I feel like I'm completely lacking the ineffable combination of drive, background, and luck that needs to coalesce to spawn a succesful academic career. This has nothing to do with so-called "intelligence" or writing ability or anything like that. I feel old to be doing this at 28 and I feel behind on jumping through most of the hoops. I know I'll pass my QEs next year, it's almost certain that I'll eventually get my PHD, but there's a snowball's chance in hell I'll get a proper academic job after that. That's ok with me on some level, since I'm pretty ambivalent about the long-term thing anyway, but it's still hard to come to terms with. I feel like I wish I'd done more as an undergrad all those years ago to prepare myself for what I'm doing now. What it comes down to is that this will all have been a long, weird trip to take to not end up a proper academic.

(The above is to be read as a position statement, not self-pity. I feel better for having thought through everything.)

(Anyone else watch the first two episodes of Hell's Kitchen this season? I'm all about Rock winning in the end. And I can't wait for Vinnie and Josh to be kicked off: they're assholes)