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diff --git a/log-210226-1.gmi b/log-210226-1.gmi new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bf7369 --- /dev/null +++ b/log-210226-1.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +Time-stamp: <2021-02-26 17h44 UTC> + +# Burnout & the slow climb back + +(insert excuse for lack of log entries here) + +(contains 60% happy ending) + +## Cause + +I'm currently pursuing a PhD in mathematics, and in exchange for a living wage i teach/TA/help administer the undergraduate courses for the department. This is not intended to be a full-time occupation⁰, and the emphasis is still largely on research and progress towards completion. + +Last semester (end of 2020) was entirely on-line. The university, as ever, sought to exploit its cheapest labour (us) and provided little-to-no support¹ for PhD workers. The result was that i had a ramshackle arrangement of bed-sheets in the corner of our living room and was expected to teach and work from that spot. + +Compounding this, mathematics for me is a deeply social endeavour. In fact, i would go so far as to say that what we know as mathematics only exists between people. If a theorem is proven in a forest and there's no-one there to hear it, it wasn't proven at all. + +Obviously social anything was right out. + +## Effect + +I'm in the end stages of my PhD, and have no shortage of things which need to be written down. Working at home (already a weakness of mine at the best of times) without contact with other mathematicians, everything digital, heavy teaching load, online-everything, un-motivated students, screens all day every day, curfews, lock-downs, ... + +About half way through the semester i went into emergency mode. Just make it through teaching, then give up. I didn't want to do mathematics, think about mathematics, or really engage with my chosen life path in any way. + +## The slow climb + +Instead i poured myself into hobbies. Playing DOOM I/II, programming a computer opponent for the abstract strategy game Tak², learning about data science (yugh), really anything but mathematics. + +I went away to cabins in the woods twice (and the work piled up). I just couldn't bring myself to continue, or even try. Eventually i managed to negotiate with the university to be afforded the absolute privilege³ of using my single-occupancy desk-sized carol in the library, and forced myself to write every time i went there. It wasn't great, but it would see me through to graduation. Probably. Maybe? + +## Finding an old joy + +After months of avoiding doing any mathematics, one day while unwillingly dragging myself through the artificial ritual of rewriting past work, it happened: i found that my hopes for the big theorem couldn't possibly materialise. + +Sure, ordinarily that would be terrible. It still had some of that, but in a sort of muted way because the whole thing wasn't enjoyable anyway. But what i found to my surprise was that discovering the counter-example made me happy. Not because i wouldn't have to do as much work, no, but instead because doing that one tiny counter-example was actually ... fun? + +``Hey, maybe this whole mathematics thing is all bad in every way all the time'' was probably the thought that crossed my mind. + +I'm happy to report that old habits die hard, and there was probably a reason i went for a PhD in the first place. Turns out, i'm rediscovering the joy :) + +Hang in there! + +-------- +⁰ officially ≤ 8 hours per week i believe +¹ while actively supporting the undergraduates and faculty, i could rant about this for a long time +² more on this in future instalments +³ sarcasm, see ¹ |