Let me explain, I started waking up at 7am and exercising for about one hour in the living room almost everyday. Felt awesome afterwards, so full of energy and so hungry!!! After the first month, exercise was gone (note how I deflect my own responsibility about it, hehehe) but I continued with the diet, after the second month, I followed portions, but not exactly the diet and exercise... mmm... I just got "busy", but hey, I continued painting :-) I felt as if I have fallen off the motivation wagon, I felt crap.
My PhD was also getting more and more tangled, was I looking at one complex and bigger question? or at three simpler questions with three different methods at the same time? What is my "contribution"? So many doubts, I see my contribution as in methods, but would examiners see it this way as well? I fell I brought back (some) sense to the whole research method. Talking to people as opposed to sending them long surveys with the hope they will answer, sometime, somehow... Looking for farmers at farmers' events and not organising 'artificial workshops' where only a few participate.
I guess, I am going through the self-doubt phase. I have started missing deadlines, questioning myself about everything 'academic' and at the same time, my paintings just got better and better. Can you see a correlation here? Am I expressing my numerical 'frustrations' with STATA and Nlogit into the freedom of pure colour? Am I abusing burnt sienna and cobalt blue, adding too much yellow cadmium to my trees of life? Am I using colours as my preferred channel of expression? Not sure what is going on. But I managed to paint the train, the train of life that goes nowhere and everywhere. It has everything I need, strength and mistery, it goes forward and it is mine.
