the ultimate contradiction i find myself in while i write my thesis:

AKA why it has taken me so long to write my thesis (BORRRRINGGG).

my favorite book of all time, like, my professional (and personal, as everything is interconnected, right??) "bible": THE MORAL IMAGINATION by John Paul Lederach.

This part really resonated with me today:

In the professional world of writing, we view with caution, even suspicion, the appearance of the personal, and lend a higher accent of legitimacy to models and skills, theory, well-documented case studies, and the technical application of theory that leads toward what we feel is the objectivity of conclusion and proposal. In the process, we do a disservice to our professions, to the building of theory and practice, to the public, and ultimately to ourselves. The disservice is this: When we attempt to eliminate the personal, we lose sight of ourselves, our deeper intuition, and the source of our understandings - who we are and how we are in the world. In so doing we arrive at a paradoxical destination: We believe in the knowledge we generate but not in the inherently messy and personal process by which we acquired it.

YOU TELL 'EM, JOHN PAUL!!!

i just realized to a deeper level why this paper has been so brain wrenching for me. its not that i dont know how to write strictly academic papers, but its that my spirit has to be compleetely ignored, shoved off, seperated from my focus. How can i seperate myself that way? i am a person who lives from my spirit, incorporating that into everything i do. no wonder this has sucked. duh! thanks, JPL.

phew. someone feels me.

holler if you hear me, folks.