If Only. . .

God, I wish I had known Dave Noon while I was still in grad school. Here is an excerpt from his dissertation acknowledgements:

A few years back, the notion of starting (to say less of completing) this dissertation was less interesting than figuring out the most extraordinary ways to dodge it. Short of faking my own death (which I discovered after some research seems to present more inconveniences than it solves), the options were rather grim indeed. At various points, and with varying degrees of planning and commitment, I mulled the following alternatives:

(1) Opening a shelter for abused and malformed cats. While this detour would no doubt have cultivated an enduring sense of mission in my life, it might not have done much to blunt the monotonous, staggering despair that had sent me poking about for new activities in the first place.
(2) Joining a law program. Beyond replacing the apparently limitless vistas of dissertation-land with three years of predictable structure, law school offered few additional lures. (See also [1] above re: “monotonous, staggering despair.”)
(3) Accepting $10/hour (tax-free) from a friend to “keep tabs” on the drummer of a local rock band with whom she was mildly obsessed. Steady employment notwithstanding, working as a professional stalker would have required too much time sitting alone in my car, were I would likely have snacked compulsively and degraded the circulation in my legs beyond repair.
(4) Astonishing friends and family with a bizarre and unexpected religious conversion. If this plan offered nothing else (and it didn’t), it would nonetheless have transformed me in the eyes of former colleagues from “that guy who bailed out of graduate school for no discernible reason” into “that guy who freaked out and joined a cult.” Unable to complete the degree, I would at least have been able to modify the narratives that took my place.