One of my favorite bits of wisdom
Research is a creative process. And like other creatives—novelists, sculptors, actors—we academics need some wisdom to help us get through that creative process. Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2009 TED talk is one of my all time favorites.
Research is absolutely hard work. You have to keep showing up for it, doing all the crafty strategies you’ve learned in your journey to becoming a researcher, even when you do not feel like it. And while you’re at it, breakthroughs come.
They can be big breakthroughs, like you suddenly see your whole research agenda laid out in front of you, connecting the dots between all the work you’ve done and planned to do. Or they can be little breakthroughs: “Oh, that’s the connection I’m trying to make! That’s how I’ll transition from this paragraph to the next.” You could not have predicted that a solution would present itself in that moment. You don’t feel like you made it happen. One moment you didn’t know what to do, and the next moment you did.
When have you been visited by your creative genius? What was it like for you?