Something That You Love

When you’re a kid, the idea of not hearing from someone for 20+ years sounds incomprehensible. Grownups do understand how the decades fly: personal connections, no matter how fond, can lapse or vanish.

Still, when long-lost connections renew, isn’t it a lovely thing? Recently, I had such an experience, receiving an email from a long-ago colleague named Jim. Despite more than 40 years passing since our last communication, I have never forgotten him. Here is why.

When I entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a doctoral student in musicology, Jim was just finishing that same doctorate. I remember how super-smart and well-versed he was. But primarily he was kind to everyone, including a cowering newbie like me.

And believe you me, I was a cowering newbie! Taking on the Ph.D. program without having first written an M.A. thesis in musicology was probably not the best plan. Faculty approval to do this had been predicated on my academic work for the master’s degree in piano performance. Still, that rigorous focus on performance yielded a disadvantage insofar as the writing that lay ahead. Then came a piece of wisdom that guided me through the perilous journey.

It happened at the end of my first (and his last) academic year when our paths crossed beneath the gracious rotunda of Hill Hall. Jim was carrying an oblong box—the kind that holds a ream of paper. Inside lay the final, painstakingly typed draft of his dissertation. With his last bit of nerve, he was darting across the building, gathering faculty signatures for the title page.

To be at that point in one’s dissertation is similar to standing a few strides from the top of Mount Everest. All coursework, exams have been successfully completed; all writing and endless revisions are done, and that same dissertation has been defended before a formal committee. Inevitable changes from that defense have been made, or the whole thing retyped (at a high cost). Once the ink on those last signatures would dry, Jim could walk out of Hill Hall and down to a building where physical dissertations were turned in (along with a sizable check to cover binding and fees for the Library of Congress Copyright).

So that was the moment I intercepted Jim. Had I known better, I would not have slowed him down. But I didn’t know better.

“I hear you’re turning in your dissertation today!” I said cheerily to someone who was pale, exhausted, and in anticipation of the first relief he would have felt in four or five years. Jim half-smiled and said “yes,” but continued to cast his eyes to the 2nd floor balcony to see if professors whose signatures he lacked had their office doors open.

I rambled on, finally managing to blurt out this question: “How do you even pick a dissertation topic?” Despite being two years away from the time I would need one, the problem already tormented me. He smiled a bit more, edged his precious cargo to one side, and said words I have never forgotten. They went something like this:

“Whatever you pick, you need to choose something that, no matter how tough it gets, no what the obstacles or how long it takes, you will still love it at the end.”

Sometimes words don’t penetrate my brain, but these did. They rang their way right into my heart. I’d already seen enough to realize how many people never get past their academic coursework, or the series of exams. Even if they do, they have terrific problems completing the dissertation and may end up leaving with the ignominious label ABD (All-But-Dissertation).

Plus, I’d heard plenty of complaining about the ways a dissertation could drag the writer into bitterness (a bit like Saturn eating his sons). The whole thing sounded awful.

But Jim’s words pierced that veil. Yes, it will be hard, he was saying, endlessly hard at times. The process will be filled with anticipated and unexpected problems. It’s likely to take much longer than you imagined, and you will be exhausted at the end. But that’s why you have to pick something that you love and will continue to love throughout the journey.

Jim had done that. He got those signatures that afternoon and stepped from graduation into a professorship at a college where he flourished throughout a long career. Based on my emails with him since reconnecting, his love of research and writing has not waned.

And so, as your academic year winds up, sprints to its conclusion, or drags itself through its final dregs, think about what led you into a lifelong quest for learning. Recall how many times that love has flickered, sometimes in distressing ways, yet never been extinguished. It burns quietly beneath tired fingers and achy eyes, overdue library books and crashed hard drives. It can clarify a blurry brain and dissolve self-doubt. Most importantly, it emerges through the ice of long semesters and thorny projects to send out new, delicate shoots, eager to grow and blossom for another spring.

Jim didn’t say all of that. And I didn’t necessarily say those words daily while writing my dissertation. But they stayed in my mind. When the ink dried on my title page and I made the same walk to turn in my dissertation, I hugged that box to my heart and thought of Jim. Gratefully, I still loved not just my topic but each adventure the endeavor had brought into my life.

Challenges do reward. They can deluge us with wind and rain, but they bring forth sheaves of grain. If we’re lucky, we will be accorded chances to shower the wisdom we receive on those who are just starting down the path.