I have been quite busy the last few weeks trying to finish a manuscript to submit to a press and have not had time to write my blog. At the same time I've seen so many ex-students and other young scholars publishing and submitting papers in a frenzy. It is both heartwarming and incredibly annoying as I contemplate the fact that I will never be that productive myself again. Time takes its toll, though it is not simply a lessening of physical stamina.
The biggest challenge to getting older in your profession, and here by "older" I mean more experienced and better, is that the scholarly problems become less simple and so do the goals. You begin to mine for a deeper meaing so past explanations do not satisfy, and former words do not convey the newer thoughts. The trail becomes tougher because it is steeper.It doesn't happen to everyone as some people continue to publish work that qualifies as a first book. And this applies not only to academics but also poets, essayists, playwrites and others who write often. It is easy to work out a "formula" and stick to it without giving it a second thought about maturing and doing something better.
Of course, as you seek to get better you confront the reality that life and physical self have changed. You might have a better situation at work or in your own business, but it doesn't mean that all things have stayed the same. What you did to get your initial respect and titles is not sufficient anymore. This, of course, is not a dilemma that waits for age. It can begin occuring as soon as you leave graduate school or simply the university. What seemed so wonderful and got you accolades as a young scholar,or writer means less in your next phase of life. And nothing get as old fast as being a child prodigy or someone with "potential".
This may be why the academy and the publishing world is full of "one book wonders" and others who seemed to have faded long before their time. Or the third category which is that of a scholar or writer who is "productive," that everyone knows is "good" and whose book you "should have" but who few people read even after they buy their book. Undoubtedly, this third category is probably a good/bad situation. It is good because your work gets published and bought ($) and your resume gets longer. But it is not good because people will say, "yes, I have that book. But no, I haven't read it."
You will be mentioned as one of those scholars who is productive and who contributes, but in the discussion of what is important and a must read your work will rarely come up in a serious vein. In that case, it means you continue to be the same writer of years past who has not charted new spaces to explore or found new words to express his/her thoughts. We all know these people. They are there and their names are good when someone asks you to "name a few" whether its because you are trying to diversify your faculty or trying to get more people in your genre to be published. And then, you realize that you haven't read their latest work or the two previous.
Getting older brings the temptation to rehash the previous and to rewalk the familiar paths to gleam something that you might have missed. We "use new filters," find "new contexts" and re-emphasize what has been overlooked. All of that is good except for when it is simply an excuse not to do the work necessary to publish new things. I know, I've been tempted several times in the last few years. And there have been times when what I can "re-do" could actually be important, but so far I am not willing to get into a rehash pit that will swallow me up, and basically end my career.
Does that mean that there not things that we can mine that might consume our whole career? No. I know that some people become experts on an event, a person or idea and spend their whole lives writing about it. They usually get some specialized endowed chair (if they are good) and end up "editing" a collection of some kind. And that is very important, but it is not for everyone and even those who do it are not always that good. Most will never have an influence beyond their immediate subfield and over time their work becomes stale. Of course, that applies to most of us. Few break through and remain in front of the pack their whole lives. And that is okay. We all need our 15 seconds in the limelight followed by long periods of time in obscurity.
But as we go from one phase to another in our career, even if its from grad school to our first job, or from our first short story to the novel, or the second poetry collection we should remember that each phase has its own "measure" and requires our growth in thought and our evolvement in our vocabulary and our writing style. It doesn't mean abandoning our "voice" or making radical changes to our style, but it does require that we improve our skills and our thinking abilities. Sometimes the next work doesn't pan out or is not as good as the previous one. That is okay, it happens to the best, but hopefully its failure is because we tried to do a little bit more and not because we stayed too close to the beaten path.
Knowing how much to evolve and how much to keep is something that we learn over time if we put attention to our skill development and our intellectual pursuit. It also means keeping our bodies and minds in as best condition as we can. But that is a topic for another day.
