on being negative

I always feel bad when I've been negative or critical. in my last blog post I was kind of critical of academia at the end. I thought about deleting it, because it doesn't really reflect my true feelings. 

I admire academics and I think that completing a PhD is a great achievement, it's just that I always seem to have issues with systems in general, including the academic system. Generally I feel quite alone with those issues, so it was nice to read something that was, maybe not exactly how I feel about the academic enterprise, but closer than I've found in the past. 

but anyway, Sylvia Plath was not opposed to the academic enterprise as such, it was just certain aspects that she was averse to. When she wrote the excerpt I quoted, she was studying and engaging with academia, but she was making the point that she couldn't see herself becoming solely a full-time academic, as she had a lot of other interests, such as writing her own poetry and other works, and interacting with others, having great conversations, etc. I feel something similar. I love studying, reading and writing, and would like to do something in the academic world at some stage - even do a PhD. It's just that, so far, it has never really worked out. 

It struck a chord with me, reading what Sylvia wrote about this issue. I've never read or heard anything as close to my own ambivalent feelings about academia, and it was interesting and encouraging.