This cannot possibly be this hard.
Research.
Apparently it is… I have no problem with the reading–It is actually quite enriching… I don’t mind a few hours digging through the catalogues or the stacks… I have no problem explaining what I intend to figure out… or chase rather… But somehow, there is a massive block between what is inside my head and what is to come out in terms of synthesized bits and pieces for published posts… I expect them to be chalk full of information and and citation.
Why?
Because well… I want to be able to find the information again someday… I seem to be guiding myself towards a paper, because that is the conventional way to use academic information. Unfortunately for me, I am struggling to do what it is that I have invented for myself as a goal. It seems insufficient that I have 6 books (Schor’s “Wet”, Panter and Virshup’s “Creativity and Madness”, “Frida Kahlo: The Paintings”, Chadwick’s “Art, Women and Society” and the “Guerrilla Girl’s Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art” all marked with post its… dozens of post its… It feel some strange inner pressure to move the information into a central location… as if by leaving it inside the books, it will continue to decay more and more until all that is left is the memory of a fact or a provocative tidbit. Even though I know what I’m thinking is un-and perhaps even counter-productive, I still find it hard to send myself in a different direction.
Oh driven mind–that you would not be so mad–that you would not be so riveted on the shortcomings of yourself.
