on rejections
There is perhaps no greater nemesis of mine than constructive criticism. I don’t want to be constructed -- or, more aptly it should be termed destructive criticism, because that’s what happens to my internal sense of self whenver I receive it. I can feel the core memory being generated, red glowing crystal balls lined up one after another, as far as the eye can see, of critiques from friends, family, and strangers. Yet, I have survived thousands of criticisms, and will continue to survive even more, because unfortunately I have put myself into the business of being critiqued (academic). It feels paradoxical, this mind-numbing adversion of being corrected, or questioned, or judged, and the life I have built that offers me so many chances of rejection.
I have only learned to deal with a very specific type of rejection: that of accolades. In fact, I have survived four for four rejections thus far this year for awards and recognitions and fellowships. Dozens of hours writing statements, pestering recommenders for letters, formatting my CV forwards and backwards, and the “We had a record number of highly qualified candidates this year...” emails don’t even faze me anymore. Maybe at some point along the way, I got used to them, because it’s been about 3 years since the last award I won -- which feels frankly unimaginable and a bit embarassing. But deep down, I think maybe I don’t really care for these laurels, but the idea of not having them -- and to mean that I would be a has-been, irrelevant, undeserving, unrecognized, fading into the background -- feels scary in a real way. It would mean that I am regressing.
Almost exactly 6.5 years ago, during the Christmas holidays in 2018, I was awarded my first, grown-up fellowship (Brooke Owens). At the time, it was everything I’d ever wanted -- no, really, I spend probably over a hundred hours on this application, re-reading it into oblivion, crying on my dorm room floor because I was so scared it would never happen for me -- and I remembered the possibility of devestation and the subsequent thrill so vicerally even now. Within the two years following, I had won, or been a finalist, for almost everything I was qualified for in my industry. It became so easy, and so expected, that I would be a shoo-in for anything I applied to, because I had gotten everything before and was therefore more competitive than anyone else applying. It was such a snowball effect, and there was honestly nothing that I thought was beyond my reach. I don’t say this to sound boastful, but rather to paint a picture of the incredible momentum I felt I had (and probably did have, and maybe still have) in my career. When I went to graduate school, it slowed to a trickle, then stopped completely. I can’t recall anything in the last three years years that I’ve applied for and gotten, whether it’s internships, jobs, or awards. A river rushing toward the ocean, and it meets a delta, and everything dissapates.
I don’t think the term is failure, exactly, but rather the absense of success. I felt such security in knowing that the external world -- people who have never known me -- came together to validate who I was as a student, researcher, or a leader. But there’s something so rotten at the core of this, no? People who get awards, then sit on committees to grant these awards to other people, who post on LinkedIn to receive congratulatory messages from other people recognize the value of this because they themselves have applied to them or won them or sat on committees to give them and everyone pats themselves on the back for being such a success and thank god someone was watching! What is it that we’re doing here, and why do I still so badly feel like I need to be part of it? And is there something rotten within me, too? I doomscroll LinkedIn and see everyone I know getting something, and instead of being motivated to hustle like them (or the image of them), I cannot imagine caring so deeply and devastatingly again as I did at the start of it all. I cannot envision putting the same amount of energy into something again, wanting something so desparately again, opening up myself to the absense of success so vulnerably again.
The last thing I felt myself possibly wanting this much was the idea of moving to Denmark, which has been solidifying since last summer but became more real this year. I had felt this idea drop along my spine, curled up and about to set itself on fire. I thought, it might be dangerous to like the idea of something so much, to commit myself to it, because what’s going to happen to me and the idea of me if it doesn’t happen? I recognized the fear and rolled it around on my tongue until only the sugar-coated center of it was left, and soon that dissolved too. Whenver it came up, I tamped it down, found offramps for myself, thought about alternate realities that might also make me happy. I’m worried that there might be a sinkhole where my ambition used to be, where nervous desire goes to die. I’m afraid I don’t know how to undo it, the layers of scales calcified from everything I say to myself to feel better it’ll be fine, there will be next year, it’s ok if it doesn’t happen, life finds a way, it’s for the best, it’s what the universe wants for you, has soured into an automatic reaction that doesn’t let me care deeply about something I could fail at.
In Søren Kirkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, he describes two characters and their views on desire. The problem is one we encounter daily -- that in order to gain what you seek, you must give up something you hold dear. Through the first, the Knight of Infinite Resignation, Kirkegaard illustrates that he accepts what would be lost, and lives with the pain of what has been sacrificed. For instance, a professor who cares deeply about mentorship, but understands that it’s not part of the tenure rubric, may resign to the fact that they will never get tenure. The Knight of Faith, however, goes a step further, and holds belief that was has been lost will return to him, through the infinite or the absurd. So the professor, fully committed to mentorship, believes they will get tenure regardless of what the rubric may say. This is a simple example, but illustrates a beautiful philosophy I find myself drawn to. But in reflecting how I’ve reacted to rejection and the absence of success, I realized that I may have acted more as a Knight of Infinite Resignation, or worse, a simple village idiot, who would simply resign himself to the loss and not even try at all.
VIEWS MY OWN
subscribe to new fieldnotes
I’m a 20-something year old living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. I’m a lover of life - in particular, sunsets over the ocean, thunderstorms, niche playlists, long meandering novels, and all cats. Fieldnotes are detailed observations collected by anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers while situated in an environment of interest; the obsessive intensity to learn and grasp and make sense of phenomena during the collection of fieldnotes is the way that feels most reflective of the way I live life. My fieldnotes serve as reminders for me of how beautiful, short, and stunning life is.