A Moment of Intellectual Satisfaction

It is Sunday afternoon, and like many Sundays before it, I am sitting at The Beanery (my favorite café in the Elmwood District of Berkeley). Elena and I are reliving our grad school study practices. She currently sits across from me studying for a big engineering licensing test while I work on my presentation for the history conference that is coming in less than three weeks. As per our usual habits, I am chatty but she is the study nazi that keeps me on task. It takes about an hour for me to truly warm to the idea of sitting quietly, and I am slightly daunted by the tome in front of me, a long/complex paper I wrote eight months ago. How am I supposed to immerse myself in it again when I feel like I am reading/learning it for the first time? Are these really my words on this page? But then, about eight pages in I start to recall the process of writing the paper, the terror and frustration, but also the excitement of making a new connection. And then I remember my professor telling me that my paper made him think about progressivism in a new way and I get excited – maybe I am really going to contribute something new at this conference – maybe I actually have something to say.

There is this feeling I get every once in awhile. And I am having it at this very moment, sitting across from Elena in the café. I can’t really describe it except to say there is an inner warmth inside me and my eyes start to well with small tears. The tears never fall, but they signify that I am truly connecting with what I am reading or writing. I feel so completely interested in my subject matter, and the connections being made in my head simultaneously gel and overwhelm me – I realize I am so close to doing exactly what I am meant to do.

I don’t know what has compelled me to express this today, as words cannot do this feeling justice. It is this feeling that propels me toward a PhD program but also repels me – as in these moments, nothing else matters. Are these fleeting moments of intellectual satisfaction worth the sacrifices?