Spoiler alert for those pursuing their Ph.D.’s: this shit – the refining of what the heck you are actually going to study – is hard. You’ll make it, but just don’t fool yourself into thinking this process will be easy because you “know” what you want to do. It’s a universal trial by fire for social sciences Ph.D. students. Gird your loins and dive on in. -J
Yesterday it occurred to me that I could be studying self-actualized change agents in the construction industry. Or I could expand that out to industries that are traditionally known as conservative. Because I don’t know how many of us there really are. In these conservative environments, I mean.
I could look at creativity in the construction industry – I could look at creativity and change agentry I could look at CSIH and change agentry Is there even such a thing as self-actualization change agentry? Or is this a term I have invented? Sitting in my bed at the Hilton Checkers hotel, something sounds like pigeons cooing – perhaps it is the pipes in the walls. It is not unpleasant.
Back to the matter at hand. Is it more important that my co-researchers be Edgewalkers or that they work in conservative/contrary environments? Is it more important that they know themselves to be rare birds in their environments?
What is it that I really want to find out? What is it like to be us in environments that don’t know what to do with us or understand us?
Here I am still typing even as my mind wanders off to pilot projects and my thesis interviews. What is it I am wanting to understand here? What is it that wants to be understood? And why is it so fucking hard to articulate?!
The unique experience of being a rare bird in an organization that doesn’t get us. That’s me. For sure. Who else is considered a unicorn in their environment, and what is it like for them to be thought of as one? Under it all, are we not just like everyone else? I would hope so, but that label, part self-imposed as identity, partly imposed by others because of a lack of understanding, seems to separate and isolate, that would be true for self-actualization change agentry as well. How self-actualized are you? Doesn’t mean anything. Or it means everything. Is it that the more self-actualized one is on a certain scale, the more exceptional they are as a change agent? Who determines what is exceptional for change agentry in the first place? Their leaders decide, of course. But there is also something about the person themselves that may recognize that one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong. (Wow, in hindsight that kids song was really inappropriate.) but that’s where exceptionalism comes from. Are we exceptional and rare or are we simply ahead of the curve, extraordinary practitioners who are ahead of the rest of our company’s partners? That’s an interesting question. Either way, what is it like to be viewed as extraordinary and rare in your workplace? What is it like to be you doing what you do in that sort of environment? Does it even matter anymore? Or because of the self-actualization is it a moot point? Or does one’s reflexive nature bring one’s awareness to this separating otherness by which we are perceived? I know Judi encouraged me to move away from the concepts of loneliness, but it is a lonely role working in that sort of environment. Where you fight to preserve somr]thing that others do not recognize but appreciate the value from. Wow.
Keep on writing, you are doing your words and you’re doing great. What else about my topic? What else wants to come through? What is it that I am truly wanting to understand? Is it just me or do other people have these experiences? And if so, what’s it like for them and what might I learn from them and their own stories? Because I want to feel less alone. So the purpose of this study is to find and connect with others like me who are the contradictions in corporate spaces and help others out there do the same. You aren’t alone and you aren’t crazy.
That was a heartfelt purpose. I think I will copy it and send it to Walker as a comment/add-on to my recent submission.
Let’s keep going off of this.
Is it me or do others have these experiences? What experiences? The experience of being pretty darn different from those with whom I work to the point where people don’t really understand me but those who do really like me. And that’s a small number relative to the rest of the company.
What’s my problem? People think it’s okay to just let me do what I am going to do, but man does that leave my heart feeling lonely sometimes.
What’s my problem? My company admits to my face that they don’t understand me or know what to do with me.
What’s my question? What’s it like to hear something like that from your employer?
