sydneyflaneur

I fired off an email to the honours coordinator for the digital cultures program. We scheduled a meeting to discuss my interests and other niggling questions I had about the future. My concerns were somewhat allayed but I know there is much work ahead. She was very positive about my prospects, and I was flattered. I think that people underestimate the value of validation as an adult. We so easily give it to children, encouraging them with things like awards and liberal praise; I don’t see why we shouldn’t continue to express our appreciation, admiration or praise into adulthood.

Part of being an academic, as I see it, is recognising that things don’t come easily, least of all understanding. I read through the diverse topics in my readers and believe I have achieved a deep level of understanding, but I have realised that this is false. Ideas which are persistent are so not because they are short and pithy, but because they are often detailed and reasoned. It isn’t all a matter of will; one must also recognise the pleasure of serendipity. Just today, there was two incidences where the works of Karl Marx came up: in an anthropology tutorial and when I was watching Woody Allen’s ‘Whatever Works.’ The former was a provocation and the latter was an off-hand reference-yes its reinforcement left it in my mind. Now, I had learnt of Marx through secondary, tertiary etc. means-people writing about him; people writing about people writing about him and so forth. Some how I had reduced his corpus to a pathetic skeleton of what his work is; ‘something about how capitalism is bad, something about means of production, alienation, the bourgeoisie and proletariat.’ Whilst these snippets were more than enough for prosaic activities, they cannot be the basis of sustained enquiry and engagement in debates. And so I began today the long task of really understanding his theory, starting off with the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry. This in itself is overwhelming, as you would expect from a lifetime of sustained reasoning from a brilliant man. How much time will I have to invest? It is obvious that I cannot understand the theory in its entirety, so why bother? Do I use this instrumentally or do I simply want to understand it for its own sake? I heard on ‘philosopher’s zone’ that Marx would not linger on aged philosophy if he were living. Then should be reinvent the wheel, speak of what has already been spoken? Such is a true waste of labour. Perhaps then, reading Marx through the disseminations of others is the task and read the (seminal) texts if you need to. I think this will be my methodology. It’s shallow, sure, but I am an undergraduate, my process of research is still developing. I wonder, though, how far this attitude will get me. Should I open up (read ‘expose’) myself to a close lecturer and risk embarrassment and ridicule for my delusions of grandeur and overzealousness. I don’t know. But I do know that something’s got to give as it were—what I’m doing now can only take me so far. I can only hope that I avoid overspecialisation or bombing out completely.

Newtown is a suburb a short distance from my university (The University of Sydney). It has been the seat of my middle-class aspirations for two years now and I have no reason to believe this will change. No doubt I’ve idealised this increasingly gentrified area, but I still believe it remains a locus for the eclectic, for queers, for liberalism and daring. It has a wonderful Victorian feel about it, retaining a large part of its history from mid/late C19 right up to the post-war boom—it has a history that I love.
This is a very tangible dream, especially if I decide to share or rent. But it would mean so much if I had a small place of my own, a retreat from the world outside where I can remain insulated from the cares of the world in this small haven and that of the university. Part of me shuns my material aspirations, but I don’t think its excessive; one needs a tangible space of constance in this postmodern world and Newtown is where I will make my stand.