A friend of mine
graduated college a year before me and is now doing his
PhD at
Berkeley. I once asked him about academia as a
Choice and he suggested, wisely, not to think about it as an
all or
nothing thing. He also said that he felt the questions all boil down to whether or not you want to write scholarly books -- the notion of which is highly unattractive to me right now.
In these rare moments of clarity, I suspect that my lingering thoughts of staying in academia are just that -- the desire itself to stay in a university and feel a part of that club. That's really how it sometimes feels. Getting a job at my university after graduating was just a convenience. And it's like being in a clubhouse where I
still look like a member but am not. Do I need that sort of external, institutional validation to feel "intellectual"? At times, I feel as though I've already answered my own questions regarding grad school, since my impulse towards academia is largely motivated by thoughts of what I profoundly don't want (a 9 to 5 job that leaves me feeling tired and empty) rather than real ideas of how to actualize what I do want -- something intellectually and emotionally rewarding that pays enough to live comfortably on. Geez, is that too much to ask?