10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb

Supposedly, after trying hundreds upon hundreds of materials that might make a bright yet durable filament for incandescent lightbulbs, Thomas Edison said something to the effect that if he tried 10,000 things that didn't work, he had not failed, he had proved that those 10,000 didn't work.  The quotation has morphed with repeated telling to this pithy version: "I didn't fail, I found 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb."

Recently, I was talking to a friend who is going to defend his dissertation soon (the same one who was so stressed before submitting -- see earlier post).  It struck me that there are many ways to write a PhD on any given topic, and part of why the process is so frustrating is that you are faced with 10,000 narrow, faded footpaths trailing off into the woods and you have to pick which dissertation you're going to write.  This involves venturing down a lot of dead ends and falling down the occasional rabbit hole before you settle on a solution.  It's a process of discovering and/or choosing all the ways not to write your dissertation.  Even then, you may be haunted by the ghosts of the 9,999 dissertations you didn't write.

I suppose a better analogy is Robert Frost's poem 'The Road Not Taken,' which is so often abused and oversimplified.  The point is that "both [roads] that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black"; one path isn't better than another, but no matter which one I choose, "I shall be telling this with a sigh, / Somewhere ages and ages hence."  In my friend's case, he wishes he had included more of certain primary and theoretical works on his topic.  Me, I wonder whether I did the right thing by slicing thinly (one-word examples) across a massive corpus of poetry.

Singing evensong in Queens' chapel

However, I'm feeling much more optimistic this weekend than I have since -- well, since the summer, really.  The summer months were consumed by two articles I was putting together, and ever since I've been slogging through the Slough of Doctoral Despond.  I could not figure out a way to bridge from lists of tiny examples to a narrative or argument -- and that's still a concern, one which looks to be resolved by means of an appendix.  But more importantly, in the process of trying, I produced a chapter-sized blob of text that my supervisor actually liked.  Gasp!  Say what?

I'm honestly still confused about what was different this time, especially given that much of the text was unrevised stuff he'd seen before.  Still, it's incredibly gratifying to hear him say that this now seems like a project that won't just "get through" but could be something really strong.  Huh?  And then there was one paragraph I had written about an idea that I liked but couldn't think of any way to expand; he thought this little thing was thoroughly original and should be an article in a major journal.  Come again?

My task now is to draw up a schema of everything that remains to be done.  *Deep breath*  What a difference this good feedback has made, though.  I celebrated that evening by making the most of a special joint evensong with Queens' College choir in their chapel, followed by formal (dinner) and drinks in the bar... and the Tit Hall MCR... and sleeping luxuriously late the next morning.  There may be 10,000 ways to write a dissertation, but it seems I'm finding mine.