Ownership
My mind drifts this morning, out into yet another gray day outside my window. Yesterday filled with sun and productivity all day. Today worry and uncertainty press in again with the gloom of the fog. I lose myself in the dahlias bringing sunshine to my desk, seeking summer in their golden centers. Remembering gardens of dahlias from years past. Aching for a garden of my own.
Ownership. What do you own? Beyond the hard, soft, old, new material possessions, what do you own in your work? Your career? Ownership is huge in academic work. We are all building on past work, making a unique contribution to a larger world of scholarship. All professional careers have ownership buried within them, choices that add up to a career. Talking with writer friends I find that some of the struggles of ownership and working through my own contribution are similar. All summer I have felt like having the garden and sanctuary of a home with sun and no plans to go anywhere would help with thte more abstract ownership. Dahlias of my own to tenderly weed around and smile upon each day. Yet the world of work would still be out there, and graduate school would still be there waiting to be completed, and the questions of ownership of “my work” would press in just as persistently.
Instead we rent, and cut dahlias grace my desk this morning. My mind skitters from worry to worry, landing upon a hard rock of anxiety about my dissertation project. All my own. What choices should I make? A post soon with the options I’m weighing.
How do you feel about ownership of your work? Your career? Your professional life?
July 16th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
This is beautifully written! I do need to think more about the ownership of my work.