Desiring Commitment While Committed to Desire

I have been contemplating the difference and interplay between desire and commitment. I am coming to the end of my structured classwork in my doctoral program. After I complete the qualifying exam and submit my proposal, I am on my own. The classes and even the comprehensive exam do not trouble me as much as the prospect of researching and writing the dissertation. I waited two years after finishing my masters degree before applying to a doctoral program for this very reason. I had to count the cost.

My fear, real or imagined, is that despite my planning and my temporal desire to complete the program, my lack of genuine commitment to the project will result in my failure to finish--earning me the unenviable moniker of ABD--all but dissertation. One of my tasks as a doctoral student is to assemble a dissertation committee. I must interview potential committee members whose expertise best aligns with my topic, selecting them based on their qualifications while avoiding potential conflicts of ego.

In one such interview, the professor, after warning me to tread lightly on the minefield of departmental politics, asked me what I wanted to be. Maybe it was because my head was filled with all the various hoops I had to jump through and obstacles I would have to surmount to finish, that made the idea of a career in academia seem somewhat unappealing to me at the moment or maybe it was the realization that what I was doing in that moment wasn't actually bringing me any closer to what I wanted to be.

Of course, I reassured the professor that I desired to be a professor, even if just an adjunct, but was I wholly committed to that end? To be honest, I was annoyed, the question came out of no where like a sucker punch and I wasn't ready to block it, in fact, I didn't even see it coming until it hit--what do I want to be? My surprise belies the fact that I think about that very question everyday; however, regardless of my true knowledge of the answer, I continue to work towards something and it is that movement that succeeds in relegating that question to the abstract arena. In the midst of motion I can blow it off with semantic quips such as, 'does anyone really know what they want to be' and the like.

But for some reason, when the professor asked that question at that moment, I could think of no line of defense. Maybe it was because he asked it as an aside to the main topic of the conversation not and not at the crescendo after building up to it that left me so subject to its power. Whatever the reason, it led me to open myself up to the possibility of accepting the realization that this is not what I want to do. Doctoral work is a noble pursuit, it could even be lucrative in my line of work as a instructional designer and I could easily find an number of philosophical issues to satisfy my addition to the ethereal but ultimately, it is not what I want to to write about, it is not what I want to spend my time contemplating. I can dress it up, I can put a mask on it, but it is not what I love--it is not what I am committed to. Of course that begs the question; what [past] version of myself do I still carry the flame for?

Could I be committed to something I have no desire to be near? When I compare my past life with my present condition I see a disturbing absence of passion, I lack commitment to my pursuits. It isn't that I have no place to go but rather I have no real conviction about whether or not I get there. I remember what it was to be committed and when I see the half-heartedness that pervades so many of my endeavors I can only lament the loss of my faith. But if I was so committed, how did I end up here?