There is a saying that certain events in life are like a marathon. I disagree. A marathon is relatively easy once you’ve done one or two (let alone a couple dozen). No, most events are like an ultramarathon. Whereas a marathon is relatively flat with regular and frequent aid stations (often a mile apart, and never more than 2 miles apart), an ultramarathon is unpredictable, often with actually steep hills (which means sometimes brutal descents) on muddy, rocky, dusty, rooty (or all of the above) terrain (and perhaps with branches trying to trip or decapitate you). And, the aid stations are many miles apart, maybe a dozen or more, certainly with more than a mere few miles between them.1
That’s all to say that completing and turning in the PhD thesis today was not like finishing a marathon. A marathon is easy. Thinking of a picture to represent the feeling I have right now, it occurred to me that this picture, taken by my daughter at the end of an ultramarathon several years ago, nearly to the day, captures what I feel right now.
The event, in western Switzerland, was relatively short at 30 miles, but there was 8,800’ of ascent (and, I think, four aid stations). One of my all-time favorite trail running pictures comes from this race, see below, which I took at about 7:30a, about two hours into the event.
Back to the point. My examiners have already been selected, so now I wait for the defense to be scheduled (while staying aware of what I wrote). In the meantime, I’m going through old emails, saved browser tabs, and draft posts to see what I might post today without much effort. Of the forty or so (!!) draft posts (many brief comments, some are responses I wrote to listserv-shared articles that triggered me, and a few are substantial drafts), not a single one will likely survive the culling. Nope. Those that seemed relevant are now OBE, overcome by events. For the others, well, I don’t see the point. I guess those were also OBE.
What does that mean for this substack (aka blog)? Nothing, really. I’ll continue to write here (and with some frequency) on the topic(s) that originally brought you here. And what are those topics? The US organizational, conceptual, legal, and practical experiences with public diplomacy and political warfare.
Now that the thesis is “done” (pending the defense), I’ll return to the book that produced the dissertation topic, which overlaps with the same. My thesis is not a one-and-done thing, but will be the basis of continued research and writing. I plan to write journal articles derived from both the thesis and the book research (which, with luck, will be published). In other words, onward toward the next event.
To be clear, these comments come from my past fitness and in no way reflect my current fitness or capabilities!
Props!
Congratulations on hitting the submit button!!!
I like the previous fitness footnote. Getting older sucks. It is still sweet and it beats the alternative, but it still sucks.