what am i doing with my life? i mean, seriously? i'm squandering it in graduate school, toiling myself away to nothing at something that i may never truly grasp. the questions are too big. it's kind of like standing with my nose pressed against a cliff. i know its really big. i'm okay with the idea that conquering it means doing some pretty scary stuff. what i don't know is whether or not i'm actually capable of doing those things that i'm okay with idea of.

want to scare me? walk up behind me and whisper "independent research" in my ear. i swear i'll jump about three feet straight up and land sprinting in the opposite direction, shin splints be damned.

even if i do make it and am awarded the fabled PhD, what if i don't deserve it? what if i'm actually being sent out in the world just to become an utter failure out there as opposed to here? all i really want to do is contribute to this crazy, messed up world; to make a mark showing that i was here and leave with it being a better place for having had me in it. staring at this god-awful research proposal sitting next to me i get the feeling that all my effort is for nothing. there is no way i am ever going to be marginally successful, much less good, at this. if i was capable of living day to day that might not be so much of a problem, but i have always focused on the bigger picture. right now the road ahead is totally obscured by this cliff i'm climbing. i'm scared i'm going to get to the top and find that it's just a wasteland. or fifty more cliffs, most of them set at backwards angles.