Oh my. What shall I say? Life is a gift. Life is so wonderful in the living of it. So fleshy. So messy. So angst-driven. So comfortable. So apprehensive. So… varied and magical and aweful (not awful). 

Speaking for myself as a behavioral scientist, I know that it is the very confusion of living that drives the curiosity that fuels my desire to spend my days exploring human nature. What can be more compelling than observing, experiencing, querying, and reflecting upon the personal lifespan experiences of humans?  Nothing is more fun for me (as long as I get breaks being with family/friends or wandering in the woods).

But I ask myself, what do I do with this wonderful observing, experiencing, querying, and reflecting? I cogitate. My desire to understand human nature causes me to put experiences into tidy boxes. I then organize the tidy boxes on mental shelves with appropriate labels. It is deeply gratifying to do this. I can look at my well-organized shelves and smile with self-satisfaction (and a little smugness).   

The next logical step is to share my organizational skills with the world. Yes!  What fun to have a community to share such ideas, to discuss our boxes, to reflect on the arrangements of our shelves. This leads to academic writing. And I must say that there is little that is more boring than academic writing. The ideas encapsulated in academic writing may be of the sort that move my heart to reach out to others in need. The abstractions of the writing may organize experiences that would move me to tears. The data gathered may be exactly what helps me envision a new way to experience life. But a reader must pass through the portals of specified language and have the keys to enter the realm of references.    

! It is a little like a dog show with rules for deportment, categories of excellence, and prizes for the winners. In order to share our boxes and shelves, we need to follow the rules set up to do so. But what if I want to expose the emotions that led to my insights, aka boxes? Amazingly, I think, the emotions that drive academicians to write about behaviors must be left outside the door. Academic writing is the world of abstractions. It is not the world of the world – of life and living.  The more we present our boxes/shelves, the more real that sorting seems to become. And the less attached the ‘sortments’ are from the reality that drove them into being. They take on a life of their own. 

It is a good thing, now and then, to empty the boxes all into the middle of the room where the emotions can look at them. Emotions, do these boxes still capture your reality? Let’s do a reality check.