Strong opinions, weakly held

I think this is my new goal. To really understand what this means, and to actually implement it. This is what I need to keep me fueled--especially because I think I've finally decided that this is the career path I choose. No, I don't love all parts of it. Yes, it scares me like crazy when I allow myself to peek into the future I project, and the kind of character and confidence I need to be able to endure and be the kind of scholar/researcher/professor/person I want to be.

But, inspired by Karl Weick, I remember why I wanted to do this in the first place, and have a tiny spark of confidence that I might just have the opportunity to actually use my brain to make some small, but significant, difference? I've realized (from other contexts) that I've spent a lot of time hiding a lot of me, because I'm afraid that it'll scare people away. Particularly, this philosophical me. I mean, I think people know that I like philosophizing, but I hide a lot of it because I think sometimes it's just too much (which I will completely understand...sometimes it's too much for me, too). By that same token, I think I've always prided myself on my capacity to think; but I've always thought that was enough. Enter Karl Weick, who, in his papers, displays such an easy elegance in  developing and expressing theory. I'm humbled by his disciplined imagination, and realize that that's what I want to have. It isn't enough that I just have all these ideas and theories about people and life and etc. and am so emotionally attached to them. The call is to "argue as if you are right and listen as if you are wrong," which leads to wonderfully passionate discussions, but without crossing the line into defending my position only because I wish to be right, or rather simply because I hate being wrong. Basically, I want to be better at being wrong. And to really have it ingrained in me that the goal is to understand--not to be right.

So what better outlet for philosophical musings--disciplined ones!--than academia? And not just for my own sake, but because I really, really believe that ideas are the beginnings of change. It is the least traceable cause--I can never know how something I have said or written has affected someone else, has altered their course, however slightly. But I can strengthen my trust that, so long as I think with an honest rigor, my ideas can mean change for good. However much others might laugh or mock the role of the academic, I will know that at least for me, I truly believe that we have our place. I don't think that all academics are convicted, or even want to be convicted in the way I am, or even that they should be (okay...that last one is kind of a lie. Right now, I think I really do wish that people would act with more confidence and conviction.), but I guess that's the whole point of this rant--I've figured out for me what I want. I feel like for the first time in a long time, this is me deciding to be true to myself. (Cheesy, I know. But you know what? I think I'm okay with that.)