But this is precisely why most of us are in the profession in the first place. The nature of academic work and the ways in which it is rewarded select -- probably more strongly than any other profession -- for hyper-insecure over-achievers.
Among several other reasons I could give to support this: who else would be motivated to do this most unnatural and neurotic, even inhuman, feat which is to keep pushing forward for months and years on end on work for which you get little to no feedback or reward, except the possible hard-to-win and easy-to-lose respect of a very small group of peers, which you yourself don't respect that much in the first place?
So I relish my feelings of fraudulence, contented in the knowledge that it is the very source of my academic success (which, of course, I intensely feel to be non-existent).
--
Posted by Mystery Mango to academicsecret at 8/08/2006 04:16:16 PM
